Thread: Hone ID

Hey everybody.
I'm sure some of you can identify this hone. A friend gave it to me a few years ago. It was pretty beat up and gouged and I left it just sitting around until the other day I decided to lap it and see what it had to offer.
It's interesting to say the least. 2 1/4" x 8" x 1 1/8" Under my microscope it looks very similar to a cnat, but in other aspects it's not even close. I rate it in the 5k-6k grit range based on the scratch patterns it leaves.
The stone is far softer than a cnat. The slurry is very dark gray, almost black. It has a very smooth feel when honing with nice crisp I guess is a good word feedback.
In the pics the stone is lapped to 1000 grit sandpaper.
I'm thinking that it may be an English Silkstone.... Any ideas?

thats a hard stone to identify maybe a sand stone it looks like it sucks up alot of water or a soft j-nat

I posted a thread about a "mud hone" some time back... http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones/64343-mud-hone.html There was a lot of discussion, but never any consensus.

Your hone looks somewhat like my "mud hone." Who knows!

I guess that's a possibility, but yours is a lot different in color. What does the surface look like under magnification?

It looks a bit like a tiny blue stone I have which may also be around 5-6k with chips similar to pic 4. I don't know what it is though It worked great for sharpening some little gouges and chisels I had sharpened on a 1k/3k, they only took a few strokes.

Silkstones are finishers so I think you can rule that out.

Originally Posted by Piet

It looks a bit like a tiny blue stone I have which may also be around 5-6k with chips similar to pic 4. I don't know what it is though It worked great for sharpening some little gouges and chisels I had sharpened on a 1k/3k, they only took a few strokes.

Silkstones are finishers so I think you can rule that out.

Thanks Piet I appreciate the input. I was under the impression that the smaller silkstones were pretty fine finishers, but that the larger size was a little more coarse. Of course I'm only going by what I've read in a post somewhere because I've never actually used a silkstone that I knew for a fact was one...

Originally Posted by eleblu05

thats a hard stone to identify maybe a sand stone it looks like it sucks up alot of water or a soft j-nat

Actually it's not terribly thirsty, I just put a splash of water on it for the pic.