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Coticule inclusion
Hope this helps someone.
Kept hearing/feeling a click when honing on the yellow side of a Belgian. Honed several blades successfully. Could not feel anything on the stone.
Tonight it just bugged me to the point that I examined it even more carefully. Thought I felt something with pressure on my finger, above the surface of the hone. Under a bright light I noticed a small shiny (think glass) pinpoint where the click was occurring. Dug it out with a pin. No more click.
Posting this only because when I searched under "coticule inclusion" I found posts saying that inclusions in coticules were soft, and that they were usually darker than the surrounding material. Not this one. Definitely harder, and diamond-like.
Maybe a piece of pure quartz?
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yep, they can definitely have quartz inclusions.
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Yup too.
Any rock can have a hard inclusion. I've got a great JNat Karasu hone that ended up revealing a large piece of grit that I could only eliminate by grinding a quarter inch diameter hole with a dremel. The hone is no longer as pretty, and certainly its re-sale value has plummeted, but it still hones just great with its little crater in it.
Grit happens.