Thread: Messing Around with Moughtons.

I have recently had the opportunity of experimenting with two Moughton whetstones thanks to the kindness of another SRP member, who, after having come into possession of the stones, passed them onto me. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but as we've established on many occasions in the past my photographic skills are non-existent, so I'll describe the two stones to the best of my ability, and let the original owner post pictures if he has them. Sample number one is a regular shaped hone, predominantly grey/ green, the red bands are on most parts of the stone very thin, with the exception of an l-shaped patch in the middle. The figuring is present on the sides of the stone, but not the back. Sample number two is an irregular, bout shaped piece which has some of the nicest figure I've ever seen on a hone, the figuring comprises equal sized, equally spaced red/ green banding, with a strange ripple effect in the middle of the red bands, this figure is present on the sides and on the back of the stone. Also included was a slurry stone, which is similar to the regular shaped stone in terms of colour and figure.

My wife's job takes us away from home at this time of the year, so a lot of my equipment, hones and razors weren't accessible, but I have a 100 razors and a basic set of hones to play around with when opportunity allows, and my results using the Moughton Whetstones are based on these razors, covering all grinds and steel types, and used in conjunction with these hones: 1k and 2k Bester; Norton 4k/8k; Naniwa 5k, 8k, 12k and a Shapton 16k and 30k Glass Stones (US versions). As you can appreciate this isn't the most orderly situation to do thorough and exhaustive testing, and as I was keen to have something to report, my experiments were haphazard to say the least.

The very first thing I noticed about these stones was that they were very porous, this didn't cause any problems when honing, but the stones dried very quickly after use, and water doesn't stand on the surface for any appreciable length of time. Initially, I thought that these were very hard stones, they had a scratchy feedback typical of much harder stones and I was having to use a very light touch to avoid the scratchy sounds. The light touch, and what I thought was the extreme hardness, meant that the stones were very slow cutters. I was using anywhere from 150-300 strokes coming off of the high grit synthetics. The stones didn't degrade the edges in any way, but there wasn't any edge refinement either, so I was looking at the Moughtons as being exclusively finishing hones for an already sharp edge, they certainly added smoothness to the sometimes harsh edge coming straight off of the high grit Shaptons. Another factor that lead me to the conclusion that these were very hard stones was the difficulty I had in raising a slurry off of them; it is much easier to get a slurry going on a Chinese 12k than it was on the Moughtons. On one occasion, when I was honing at night, I noticed that if you held the stone at a certain angle the water had a reddish tinge to it, but I couldn't get the creamy slurry typical of a coticule or a Thuringen. One point I need to mention here is that the stones were provided to me already flattened, so I didn't have to lap them at all, nor did I have my Mohs testing kit to hand

When I contacted the gentleman who sent me the stones, to discuss my results with the first 50 razors I had honed, I was very surprised by two things that he mentioned. Firstly, he thought that the stones were quite soft, only slightly harder than a Dragon's Tongue, and also, that the stones had only been lapped up to a nearly worn out 80 grit, I found this surprising as the stones felt very smooth; easily as smooth as a Thuringen lapped up to 1200 grit in my experience. Whilst these observations helped to explain the porous nature of the stone, they were at variance with my initial findings. One thing that we did notice was that the red spots were softer than the green, whilst there wasn't any visible or tactile indication that there was a difference between the different portions of the stones I thought that this might explain my initial experiences. Often, certain types of hones, are manufactured with a purposefully rough surface in order to give the stone what it is termed as bite in order to increase the abrasiveness, this is why the Dragon's Tongue hones have a rough surface out of the factory. Whilst this would be counter-productive with a razor, I thought that a nearly worn out lapping grit, coupled with a stone of varying hardness, might have created a microscopically uneven surface. This would certainly have explained the scratchy feedback I was getting. With a break in wife's schedule, we took the opportunity to head over to Elba for a couple of days, where I took some time to search for the famed Bagnaia schist razor hones. No luck there unfortunately, but I did meet a local carpenter who showed me his whetstones, and as luck would have it, he was the owner of a set of diamond lapping plates. I drew a pencil grid on both the stones and they were certainly much softer than I would have expected based on my initial experiences. I've had Thuringens and certain coticules that were softer, but the Moughtons were nowhere near as hard as I would have guessed.

With the newly-lapped hones I set about refinishing the initial test razors and finishing those I hadn't got round to starting on. One other thing I started doing at this point was keeping the stones continually submerged. Whilst their porosity hadn't cause any undue difficulty in honing, I found that they performed much better in this way. Also, after lapping and constant submersion, I found it was easier to get a slurry from the stones themselves, although overall it is still harder to get a slurry from these than the Chinese 12k. The slurry itself has a very thin consistency, and is a pinkish/ purple colour. Having been lapped, the stones lost more of their abrasive quality, to the point where I wasn't getting anywhere with water alone. I use these with a slurry exclusively now, and this provides a very gentle abrasive sound, similar to footsteps in freshly laid snow, which is a good indicator of how the edge is progressing. Also the slurry goes someway to negating the very smooth surface of the stone, adding a gentle draw, much like using dish detergent on other stones. The Moughton Whetstones are at their best when used to add smoothness to an already sharp edge, I'm using these in the same way I started, going to the Moughtons after a high-grit synthetic. They cut very slowly, but even with a slurry they won't degrade an edge in the 12k to 30k range. I think the slowness is exacerbated by the very light touch required when using the hones in this manner. Oddly enough, I find the stone more effective on thinner grinds and harder steel, which is strange when you consider it was worked in the early 1800's for the Sheffield razor trade when heavier grinds would have been the norm.

One interesting quirk of this stone, and something I've never seen before, is that the red, particularly on the bout-shaped piece, has a tendency to bleed into the green layers like a dye. This may account for the pleasing ripple effect on that particular piece.

I have seen members comment that they like the idea of honing British razors on a British stone, and seeing as HAD has nothing to do with logic this is something I can identify with and understand completely; and in light of the Moughtons having been quarried for the Sheffield razor trade particularly, there is an additional cool factor with these stones.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way these stones perform, there has been some trial and error to discover the best way to use them, but no more so than any other hone. Some people may be put off by the slow cutting speed, but with a slurry it is effective and isn't much slower than a Chinese 12k used with water or a very hard Nakayama Asagi.

I haven't named the gentleman who sent me the stone because I think it would be unfair for him to be inundated with requests for Moughton Whetstones, but I just want to say publicly how much I appreciate his generosity. Hopefully he will chime in himself as he is very knowledgeable about hones and his input, I'm sure, would be very enlightening.

Kindest regards,
Alex

And here are those pistures. BTW. Keep an eye on those places where they sell exotic materials for rockeries. I am 90% sure that I have somwhere seen it before.

Thanks for the excellent review! and the pics look great.
Now that you have stirred the HAD again......! Still waiting on the Dragons Tongue hones.....should be arriving soon.

That looks like wood grain. Thats pretty cool.

I hoe those DTs arrive soon. You ordered them quite long time ago.
As for the Moughton a lot people who saw it say that it looks loke fosilised wood.

For those who think that they may have seen these stones somewhere before, a stone of similar appearance, albeit of a somewhat coarser grain, was quarried for whetstones in Mill Cove, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Kindest regards,
Alex

Wow!
Those are gorgeous!

Are these hones going to be made available to those who cannot help themselves?

I would need one or two.


E

I've got some.. .......

I hope it is noy one of those on bay. You could be pretty dissapointed.