Oh lord not again!!!! Tell me what I paid too much for yet again.

[regularjoe]

Dimensions: 8x1.5 inches
Weight:414 grams or 15 ounces roughly.
Color: Dark grey with black striations
Hardness: It'll stop my belt sander dead in it tracks. It'll give up some grey slurry with 600 grit paper, but was very similar to a Guanxi stone in this regard. Very, very, very hard.
Provenance:Tool dealer in Connecticut.
Smell: Kinda like novaculite when I was grinding on it with the belt sander.
Finish: 12k+

In picture 4 the stone is in the center, between an Escher thuringian and a recent mined Guanxi stone with slurry stone.

Kinda thinking maybe somebody bought a woodcraft stone and cut it right down the middle lengthwise, but idk, what do you guys think?

[Scipio]

If it is hard, black and in a new looking box, I'd have guessed surgical black Arkansas.

[regularjoe]

No, I made the boxes Scipio. Every hone gets a case around here . I don't pay good money for stones and not protect them. That was an old case that just happened to fit it. I'm not ruling out black Ark though for sure.

Oh forgot to mention the stone had no oil residue on it, although it was a little dirty.

[eleblu05]

surgical black ark size is a little off but the gray slurry sounds right super hard stone i would like to see a better pic of the striations and do you have a c-12k ? if so compare the two's slurry and note the differences. i never saw a surgical black with striations i have seen spots on surgical black before

[regularjoe]

Yes sir, the c12k is on the left in picture 4 of the OP And here's the best I can do for showing the striations.

[Scipio]

The boxes look good, nice idea. Congrats on your find as it seems from your experience to be a finisher. Eleblu has more experience with Arks than me, and I know little of them except that a black novaculite sounds like it can only be one thing.

[roughkype]

In your photos it appears way more reflective than any slate hones I've seen, so I'll vote for novaculite or something else not-slate.

[Theseus]

I'll add another vote for surgical black Arkie. Once you get it prepped correctly and dialed in, you should have a great finisher, especially for harder American steel.

[regularjoe]

Ok, my grit estimate was high. lol. But like Theseus said, if it's black arkansas then I'm gonna need to prep it, which I haven't done. I used it to finish a razor tonight, and I can say it feels just like a Hard Arkansas with a blade going across it. Kinda like the rock is grabbing the cutting edge of the razor, and sucking it down to the stone. Anyways, first impression using just water is not much better than N8k. Ofc, my testing is crap...I'm not disciplined enough to really get too scientific. I did thirty on water, then another thirty to see if that would give what I wanted. After that I took the razor to thuri and got what I wanted. lol. But...I'm pretty happy if I got a black ark, and paid about what the market asks for one. Not too bad I guess.

[eleblu05]

taking a closer look at the last pic are those cracks running down the middle of the stone ? try the scratch test use the side of the stone take a nail or a knife and scratch the stone what color is the mark and did the scratch cut into the stone ? here is a 10x3 inch surgical black i used a 325 dmt (it was worn to begin with ) for three hour's this is where i got