Thread: American Naturals?

I know this may be a rather naive question but I'm wondering if there are American natural stones that may be right under our eyes but ignored by the honing community. One of my other past hobbies was flintknapping and I've seen a lot of different native stones that are both extremely fine texured and hard. Of course there are the Arkansas stones (novaculite) but there are also many many other native cherts that just beg to be tried as hones. I'm thinking of stones like Indiana hornstone, Burlington chert, Texas chert, Flint-Ridge chert, etc. These range from fine texured to very fine to almost glass-like. Has anyone tried or heard about results from using these? I'm no geologist so I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely.
Edit:
(I just realized I posted this in the wrong place. Would a mod please move it to Hones? Thanks.)

Where could a person resource these stones IOT try them for honing?

I live about 15 minutes away from Flint Ridge state park here in Ohio. May have to go for a hike this weekend and keep an eye out.

Many of these stones can be purchased from flintknapping suppliers. Google will show plenty. When using this stuff for flintknapping it seems expensive but if it was suitable for hones it would be really cheap compared to just about any other hone material. If it worked, and that's the really big "if."

The way I see it, there is no "if". There are undoubtedly lots of different stones that would work. Abrasives are not at all rare. The only question is, are they homogenous enough to safely abrade the very thin steel of a razor blade?

You have to keep in mind, the currently known abrasive stones got that way due to historical reasons, not necessarily geological ones. The Japanese hones, for example, were discovered because there used to be a TON of wars here, and they went through a lot of bladed weapons that needed to be very sharp, as well as the very strong cultural dependence on good carpentry (almost all buildings were wooden) which depends on sharp tools.

Europe has a similar history, the use of Coticules apparently goes back to Roman times.

That kind of history just wasn't as strong in North America, so people didn't look so hard...but it's a big continent, with a lot of geological diversity. Surely something somewhere would work.

I'm a knapper too. fort Payne would undoubtedly be a goo hone.

I am not a knapper, but I am a arrow head hunter, and have a very nice collection, which means I speak rock...
I live in Northern Oklahoma and we have a popular chert called "Kay County Chert" I have thousands of pieces of it in my flower bed (yeah I pick up the flakes) some of them are a bit larger. I don't think they would work well as I would compare them to my transulcent and surgical black hones or even Washita hones, which I have tried on my razors, yeah I guess over time they would work ok, but very very VERY slow.
Cherts by nature are very hard which would be the reason our native american history use them as tools. not to sharpen tools. (yeah I know we can talk about native amercians using them to sharpen other tools as well, but that is different)

We do have sandstone/slate in the US. I think that type of material would be better than a chert/flint type.

I have some nice big slabs of Kentucky Hornstone and some smaller slabs of a quartz material (the name eludes me just now) that feel as if they would be high grit to my fingers. I might try them out, especially if I can source a rock saw to saw out some hones from the round slabs.

As a quick test, I marked the edge of a new knife with a sharpie and tried 3 different natural cherts. All 3 removed the ink very quickly. these stones feel just as fine as my chinese 12K and my Naniwa 12K to my fingers. I plan to try them on my razors as they need touch up in the future. As mentioned earlier in this thread, these stones would be as cheap as the chinese 12K and seem to be likely polishers to my way of thinking.

I have always wondered about Oregon...THe terrain is the same a Japan...Gotta wonder if the stone has some simularities also....You know that whole continent breaking apart thing...