Thread: Sparkley hone that really performs!!!

Voidmonster - I have two hones that look very much like that. One is a BBW, the other a vintage LM. They look astonishingly similar. The BBW has tiny sparkly bits in it, but the real give-away is that it is spoted all over with little dots of yellow coticule. It's a very fast cutter and leaves a mirror-like bevel. It performs very much like a coarse coticule. The vintage LM is given away by the green inclusion it has - one solitary elliptical inclusion in the side of it, which shows that it was cut across the strat rather than with it, otherwise the ellipse would have been more circular. There is a small difference in the smell too - the BBW reminds me of freshly mixed plaster, the LM has a very faint, hard to describe fleeting aroma.

Regards,
Neil

Both of these look somewhat like my Fox/Goldfisch hone, which might be related to BBWs. Mine came in a Thuringian style box but without a label, there's a Goldfisch thread with labels. This stone is sparkly but I should add that I also have a similar sparkly BBW.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Voidmonster - I have two hones that look very much like that. One is a BBW, the other a vintage LM. They look astonishingly similar. The BBW has tiny sparkly bits in it, but the real give-away is that it is spoted all over with little dots of yellow coticule. It's a very fast cutter and leaves a mirror-like bevel. It performs very much like a coarse coticule. The vintage LM is given away by the green inclusion it has - one solitary elliptical inclusion in the side of it, which shows that it was cut across the strat rather than with it, otherwise the ellipse would have been more circular. There is a small difference in the smell too - the BBW reminds me of freshly mixed plaster, the LM has a very faint, hard to describe fleeting aroma.

The patterning in this one is purely variations on the same purple. Under a loupe, the sparkling bits are very pale, almost white. There are lighter and darker variations of the same purple, including one very dark vein on the side which has a different texture (at 10x magnification).

I had to raise a slurry with hot water to get any smell at all, and then it was a very transitory smell that I associate with Pu-erh tea and my ChiNat finisher. The difference between this and the ChiNat is the ChiNat's smell builds easily and lingers where this was there just long enough to notice and then it was gone.

My tiny bit of experience with using it as a hone is that it behaves much the way Coticule.be says a BBW does, namely, with slurry, it won't overhone the edge and it's not fast. I don't really have time today to do a full hone on it, but I suspect that with slurry it'll give a mirror polish.

Here's my two hones
Left-Lynn Melynyn, Right-Purple BBW

Hmm, ok, well can anyone pick it out of a line up of Belgians? lol. It doesn't act like them really, and this person wouldn't describe the scratch pattern as similar to my small variety of belgians and their scratch patterns. It also sparkles regardless of whether it's wet or dry. Although, I'd have been happy if it was. I'm happy thinking it's not as well. If it's Belgian, it's an ultra rare version that really would have turned the world on its head if it would have been used in Coticule.be's test. But here's some more pics for comparison.

LMAO sorry regularjoe, I didn't really look at who the O.P was in this thread, I was thinking you were a newbie. In the top picture, it's second from the left, and in the bottom picture the same. Now that you gave us some reference point (compared to 3 BBW's) and said that it doesn't behave the same, I'd say maybe its not a BBW. (BTW, I've noticed different coticule's have very different feedback, however)

Also on one of your bbw/coticule combos, it looks like BBW was glued to the coticule, as theres too distinct a line between the two for a natural combo. Am I correct? At first i thought it was slate backed, but i saw the character of the stone in one of those pics...

Also, in your mystery stone, i dont see the typical coticule pattern in it, so now i really dont think its a BBW.

Do you see how a little more information helps us determine things?

LOL. I figured that was the case. I'm still pretty new really

When I was taking the oven cleaner off of it, I was thinking "Hey, I got another Belgian!" lol But after it was clean, then I was stumped. Honed on it, and the results were amazing IMHO, so I had to ask on here for opinions of what it is. That one you're talking about is also a natural combo, but it must have been cut juuuust perfect. On the opposite end of the stone, the coticule goes almost all the way to the BBW surface on one corner.

We'll see if anybody else picks differently before I reveal the correct stone. lol.

That is a crazy distinction on your combo coticule, mine has the purple and yellow blended together in the stone. On your mystery hone, If it didn't have that sparkly stuff in it, I'd say it looks like welsh purple slate. I've used slate hones before and I was amazed at how fine an edge, and how velvety the feedback is on them. Looks like you got yourself one mighty fine mystery hone

Originally Posted by woodsmandave

I've seen the BBW referenced as around a 4k stone before, too. I don't know why some people think that. I know some people do bevel setting on a BBW and finish on the coticule, but I think they do that so as not to waste the valuable coticule side - not because a combo stone is like a 4/8 norton. But the only difference between a BBW and a coticule is the quantity of garnet crystals contained within. 20-30% in the BBW, 30-40% in the coticule. In my mind, that makes the BBW a slower cutter, but not something lower in grit. You should read the study done on this subject, it's very interesting. I can't attest to the scratch pattern, but some people might look at the bevel of the coticule and say that there's no scratch pattern there, either. I wouldn't say that, but some would...

Well thats interesting!! since i do most of my honing on a 4k/8k norton then followed by a yellow lake, then a finisher, im not
using my coticule a lot and its not backed up by anything its glue to a piece of wood.In the past i did have 2 others coti but never
use the bbw side since i believed is was something around 4k, so i pretty much used the coticule side only.Im definately interested in finding that study for sure.

Im pretty sure its listed on coticule.be. It concluded that while a BBW is a slower stone, the finished edge is just as fine as a coticule. Apparrently, though, with heavy slurry, the BBW can be a fast cutter, and so some use it for bevel setting. I've found this to be true, at least on my 2 coticules.