Thread: New stones - Image heavy...

I have put this information up on another forum so some of you may already be aware of it - but for the sake of those of you that are not, Here it is again:

I like to hike in the desert. I often go on long overnight hikes. sometimes alone, sometimes with family and friends. In one of my recent hikes I have found, and brought back some material that looked like it would make and interesting whetstones.

This material has been identified by two independent sources as mid-Triassic material. I have started to experiment with it. First time around I only brought back a small bit and managed to cut it up into a small hone. I worked one of my knives on it (01 tool carbon steel around 64 HRC).



As you can see, the sample cracked because it took a nasty drop on the way home - but I managed to mount it on a flat wood surface and work with it.

The milky white slurry built up relatively quickly just by dabbing some water on the surface and giving it a few whisks with the blade.

It has nice cutting power and I would rate it around 4000-6000 grit.

This is what I now call "Type 1" material. It is relatively homogeneous compared to Type-2. It is also more porous than Type 2.

Type 2 was discovered after I went back and brought more of this material. The stones I took looked identical.



But when I sliced them into slabs I discovered they are actually made of two types of material. Type 1, as described earlier, is the top stone in the image, and Type 2 is the bottom one.



Here they are wet:



You can see that Type 2 has a relatively irregular surface with small nicks and veins. These can be pretty big sometimes - but from my personal experience they do not really encumber the honing process.

Here are X 80 magnifications of Type 1 and Type 2 respectively:





Type 2 is around 8000 grit and gives a sort of milky / misty surface.

Su.WEEEET!

The softness is intriguing!
Maybe a nice find!
(.... and of course I'd like to have one to see )

I think it has radioactive isotopes in it. You need to get rid of it as soon as possible ship to OLIVIA'S address or Mine. We will be gladly take care of it with neutralizer solution.

Great Job keep it going and show to us nice looking stones.

Glad to see you joined us Tslil !

It would seem you have found out where I have been hiding lately. I am definitely interested in getting my grubby little paws on one of those stones!

I too am working on getting a chunk of material worked down into a trial hone, although I only brought back a small piece and will have to wait a few months before I can go back and dig up some more....

I find it interesting that both types of stone looked identical in the beginning, but how would you characterize the second stone? since you said the first falls in the fast cutting 4 to 6K area of performance...

Hello Alchemist! long time no see. i'm digging the stones. keep hunting!
i still have that knife template i meant to send off to you... whoops.

Hi Bassguy,

So....why not send it to me?

I just got word from a friend who has been a professional Geologist for many years and had a look at the material.

As he is also intimately familiar with the particular area of the desert where I got the material from, I conveyed to him the exact location. He confirmed earlier assessments that this material is a type of Basalt. More specifically, Nordmarkite - A quartz-bearing alkalic syenite that has microperthite as its main component with smaller amounts of oligocase, quartz, and biotite and is characterized by granitic or trachytoid texture.

All these big words are making my head hurt...

Very interesting!

What you write about them, how they behave and what they look like, they remind me of the Turkey Hone, especially #2.

Originally Posted by Alchemist

I just got word from a friend who has been a professional Geologist for many years and had a look at the material.

As he is also intimately familiar with the particular area of the desert where I got the material from, I conveyed to him the exact location. He confirmed earlier assessments that this material is a type of Basalt. More specifically, Nordmarkite - A quartz-bearing alkalic syenite that has microperthite as its main component with smaller amounts of oligocase, quartz, and biotite and is characterized by granitic or trachytoid texture.

All these big words are making my head hurt...

Thats really great to know!
The guy is an asset!