Thread: Exciting potential hone from the depths of Ithaca!

So during the summer I spent a bit of time in Ithaca's various gorges looking for hone material. I ended up bringing a few samples home but was too lazy to lap them (you would be too if you were flattening raw rocks on sandpaper: think barber hone). I just received my amazing new DMT and so I lapped them and one of them seems very promising. I have not honed with it per se, but instead tested a few of the samples in various ways to find actual potential.

What I did was rub a cruddy razor on them to check if they would abrade steel, and two did. Great. Then I tried a not cruddy but not sharp ebay special, and it seems one only removed corroded metal, not good metal (or not fast enough to be a hone). The other seems to.

This one happened to be the most promising from the start. I'm no geologist but this seemed "denser" than most rocks around here- not necessarily in the property density but in grain- very fine structure and it didn't fracture as flakily as others. Also, I noticed tiny tiny little tiny shiny specs in it- they catch the light and what I am hoping is that they are quartz or something like that. (some kind of silicate)

My question is, what is the best method to determine this stone's viability as a hone, and how would I find its place in a progression (I would say grit but we all know grit is not accurate for placement)? I don't particularly want to hone 5 razors in different ways- I don't have enough experimental razors at my disposal and don't really want to dull and resharpen my nice razors. Is there an easier way?

Pics will be up soon.

So I couldn't wait to deal with taking pics- I will eventually- so here is a scan for now. The color seems wierd- in real life it is quite grayer than this. Also it is 4ishx2ish (if it were a rectangle) so for some reason it is enlarged. The black down the left hand side was dirt it rubbed off. I have rounded the edges (so as to not catch a razor) which explains the apparent color difference around the edge- there is no colour difference, just an artifact of scanning vs. taking a picture.

Gotta hone to win.

Also- I know most English slates are typically oilstones- should I use water or oil?

Try both, see which works better.

Try on some polished piece of steel and see what scratches it leaves.
(Instead of trying to polish something rough with it)

There are so many combinations of characteristics that make something a good hone you could go crazy trying delineate all of them. First you have to decide whether your talking a finisher or a low grit type. The low is easier because you need something coarse and harder than steel to remove alot of material fast. A finisher is a different story you could have something that is very friable and releases parts of itself like a coticule does or you could have a massive stone like say beryl which is very hard and the hardness alone does the work. The issue really is what characteristics make a stone a superior honer because any stone will hone even running water or ice for that matter (ice is a rock you know). So its not hard to find something that works. The question is speed and the result you want.

My feeling has always been that people have been honing all kinds of edged instruments a very long time and if any mysterious rocks or minerals had some magical properties it would have been discovered long ago. For something different try honing on ordinary beach sand and see what happens.

Beach sand probably works well because it is silica if I am not mistaken.... and ice is not a rock... its a mineral! duh.

Also, technically water does not abrade- the particles dissolved/suspended in the water abrade.

Yes I know almost anything can hone I am just trying to figure out if what I've found is a PRACTICAL hone. So far I've determined it is between 6k and a bazillion k. Meaning that it is not very good for setting bevels and useless for low grit work. I cannot tell conclusively yet where it fits in though.

If you have a Norton 4k, you could set a bevel and then proceed from there to the new hone and see what happens, good luck!

Originally Posted by khaos

Beach sand probably works well because it is silica if I am not mistaken.... and ice is not a rock... its a mineral! duh.

Also, technically water does not abrade- the particles dissolved/suspended in the water abrade.

Yes I know almost anything can hone I am just trying to figure out if what I've found is a PRACTICAL hone. So far I've determined it is between 6k and a bazillion k. Meaning that it is not very good for setting bevels and useless for low grit work. I cannot tell conclusively yet where it fits in though.

Ice is rarely pure. It has all kinds of dissolved particles and other minerals in it. Even distilled will upon microscopic examination have some impurities in it. Truly pure water or ice is a rare thing. Same with any mineral naturally found. There are always impurities.