Thread: Scotch Hone

This is a combination stone I recently bought from the UK. The other side is a Dalmore Blue but what is this side, could it be a Water of Ayr?

It was very easy to lap so pretty soft. I honed a razor on it and the scratch pattern was similar to that of a Coticule. So it's a finisher but not that fine.

It's 17.6 x 4.8 cm, dark grey with tiny even darker speckles.

Looks kinda like a Tam O Shanter....which is 8k btw, and very gentle finisher....good for blades prone to micro chipping.

It does look like a ToS but it's much darker. I assume it's either a ToS or a WoA. I also have one of those tiny WoA pen knife hones which is actually pretty light. Although that may be from when they called ToS hones WoA

Here are some WoA pictures for reference:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/679082-post1.html
http://straightrazorpalace.com/628100-post59.html

If paired with a Dalmore Blue it is most likely a TOS.

The WoA dual hones I've see were all paired with a TOS.

The normal progression would be DB, TOS, WoA.

I should have added that there are two types of Tams. The white one is the razor finishing stone. The stand alone darker ones I've seen were labeled for tools.

There are more than just two types of ToS hones. The two you mean are pictured by Oldengaerde in the second link. The two WoA in that picture seem to differ as well. The left one has blotches while the other one doesn't but may have similar speckles as mine.

Btw I've seen similar blotches in the swirly figured ToS hones. Compare this one of mine to Gugi's WoA:

I reckon its a WOA.

Here's one I sold last month, and a pic partially wet:
[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

If the colours are true it looks exactly like my Mauchlineware TOS hone. But that one is approx. 100 years old.

Even then the naming of the hones was inconsistent as you can read here:

William (1795 – 1847) and Andrew (1797 – 1869) were the youngest of five children born to William Smith, who was a mason (builder) in Mauchline, and his wife Jean (Nee Merry). The brothers followed their father’s trade. In the 1820’s both still bachelors, the brothers were running a Hone stone factory at Milton Mill, near the Hamlet of Stair, on the North bank of the River Ayr. It has been assumed that the Smith brothers started as Box Makers in the village of Mauchline because they wished to have their own source of cases for their “Water of Ayr Stones”.

I never saw a Machline ware razor hone called other than Tam O' Shanter.

To be honest. Some time ago I got interest in WOA and TOS. What interested me that some of them were light coloured with dark spots and some other way arround. Originaly I thought dark background with light spots WOA. Light background dark spots TOS. I thought different veins in same quarry could produce different hones (like coti/bbw or Escher/Thuri) However recently I have acquired a few I believe originaly labelled TOSs with coulor range all over the place. This meand I am back to sqare one. Hopefully I will be lucky for change to get a few WOAs to compare. From the picture I would say TOS.

Although some WoA hones seem like they could be speckled I can't see any when looking at close-ups of WoA's. Based on these close-ups a very dark ToS seems more likely than a speckled WoA.

It's still a very nice combination stone of course

Here it is with my penknife hone to show the difference in color.