Thread: Water hone for penknives ect.

Well, the photos were taken by myself with the permission of the museum during one of my visits there. I#m not really sure if I'm allowed to post them here because they are not official, so maybe I should better remove them.
But maybe some more information of the museum and thuringian stones in general is interessting for you.
The slate museum in Steinach deals with the slate mining industry in this area. Hones and sharpening stones are only a smaller part of this industry, mainly slate school tables and slate pencils were produced and this area is very famous for that.
But in this museum there is one smaller room only dealing with hone stones.
Here you can see all kinds of hones, sharpening stones, sharpening wheels/discs and so on made of thuringian slate. And you find some history of the companies that were mining and trading this stones.
One interesting thing may be, that you don't see any Escher labeled stone there - nor any information about the Escher company.
One reason for that is, that the history about thuringian stones is much more than the history of Escher company.

Sharpening stones were mined in this area from the 14. century on in nearly all qualities and for all thinkable usages. There were coarse stones for sharpening scythe blades and very fine stones for razor or instrument honing and so on. Sharpening stones of this area were found in an ancient celtic city not far away, that exists more than 2200 years ago.

J.G. Escher arrived at the scenery, when he settled to Sonneberg around 1750. He first worked as a painter and then began to trade with slate products of this area.

So Escher was mainly a trading company who had his own mines but also bought stones from other mining companies in this area. This mining "companies" were mostly one/two man companies who had the right to mine in a certain area. For example in the year 1840 there were about 24 mines with 50 workers in total in the area of Steinach. Escher company itself was located in Sonneberg (there had been some mines in Sonneberg too, but most of the mines -even the ones for the recent known thuringian waterstones- had been in the area of Steinach). Escher brought the stones mainly mined in the Steinach area to Sonneberg, where they were labelled and selled around the world.

So - just a very short overview of Thuringian hone stone history - keep in mind that not only Escher-labelled stones are good thuringian hones. In Germany most of the Thuringians you find are not labelled. Mostly the hones were used by Barbers and even if the stones had been labelled once, no one who daily work with this tool kept any attention to a label that was bond on the back.

Great information. Many thanks, hatzicho. Which is the Celtic city that you refer to?.

Please don't remove the photo, it is very good. if you have anymore please post them! we won't tell anyone we promise...

You said your description was the short version. please if you could give us the long version, it would be great to have as much info as we can..
Thank you for your time

I noticed this one says can be used for pen knife & razor.
supposedly this is a strop hone. is it?

@ scipio
I don’t think that there was a difference in quality between penknife and razor Thuringians. There was a coarser quality of sharpening stones mined in this area used for sharpening of scythes and sickles. The material of these stones is found as greywacke that has its origin in the lower Devonian age whereas the razor and penknife hones consist of serizit and clay slate of the Ordovizian and the upper Devonian age.

I think the difference in penknife and razor hones simply was the size of the hone. I don’t think that hones of a size of 6 inch by 1 inch or even smaller were intended to be used for razor honing.
For the special hone sidmind has posted of course I cannot say for sure that this is a Thuringian by the photos. But penknife hones were a well known and documented usage of Thuringians.
The slurry indeed looks a little bit yellow-brownish in the photos, which reminds me more of a frankonian stone. But also I have some Thuringians that produce a more yello/darker grey slurry. Depends on the colour and of which area/mine the stone comes from. But even if this is a frankonian stone. The frankonian area directly borders to Thuringia and these stones are even finer (used as an absolutely end finisher for razors) than thuringian stones. So the quality should not be less but might be even better.
By the way, I have not seen any frankonian that comes in one of these boxes.

@ AlanII
Celtic city might be a little bit misunderstanding according to the comprehension of city from today. Actually it was more like a big castle, comparable to what was known in the middle ages, but very large, with several thousand inhabitants at the high times.
From the literature is known, that the celts brougth whetstones from the area around Steinach to the Steinsburg in Hildburghausen.

Originally Posted by hatzicho

@ AlanII
Celtic city might be a little bit misunderstanding according to the comprehension of city from today. Actually it was more like a big castle, comparable to what was known in the middle ages, but very large, with several thousand inhabitants at the high times.
From the literature is known, that the celts brougth whetstones from the area around Steinach to the Steinsburg in Hildburghausen.

Yes, an oppidum (and a quick google takes me straight there), often called hill-fort in English. Thank you again.

Originally Posted by hatzicho

@ scipio
I don’t think that there was a difference in quality between penknife and razor Thuringians. There was a coarser quality of sharpening stones mined in this area used for sharpening of scythes and sickles. The material of these stones is found as greywacke that has its origin in the lower Devonian age whereas the razor and penknife hones consist of serizit and clay slate of the Ordovizian and the upper Devonian age.
.

Many thanks for all that invaluable information, Hatzicho - it certainly clarifies matters re: thuringian hones!

RE: Greywacke, a small British hone of around 1" x 6" (25mm x 150mm) was sold as a razor hone, the label saying that it was glued to the hone itself - it was made from Greywacke, which is quite abundant in Wales. A fine variety is found in Charnwood Forest, near where the famous Charnley Forest hones come from. As you say, the German use for it seems to have been for scythestones, etc, as it can be quite gritty in character, being an immature sedimentary rock of very mixed constituents. The type used in the British hone is a very dark grey, almost black colour, and quite fine in character, with no very large particles. Of course, it is not in the same league as a good thuringian stone!

Regards,
Neil

[QUOTE=Neil Miller;985106]

RE: Greywacke, a small British hone of around 1" x 6" (25mm x 150mm) was sold as a razor hone, the label saying that it was glued to the hone itself - it was made from Greywacke, which is quite abundant in Wales. A fine variety is found in Charnwood Forest, near where the famous Charnley Forest hones come from. As you say, the German use for it seems to have been for scythestones, etc, as it can be quite gritty in character, being an immature sedimentary rock of very mixed constituents. The type used in the British hone is a very dark grey, almost black colour, and quite fine in character, with no very large particles. Of course, it is not in the same league as a good thuringian stone!


Thanks Neil for that info!

I have quite a lot of Thuringians calling my own, but up to now I have not found such a scythstone made of thuringian greywacke.

Literature says, they were greenish grey in colour, sandstone like and found between layers of clay slate. They consist of pieces of quartz and feldspar, chlorite and fericite with grain size between 80 to 150 µm. They were mainly mined in the area of Sonneberg.

Regards
hatzicho

Great info, I had my eye on one and now decided to buy it (relatively cheap, I guess) on a local auction site. It comes in a blue box with a different font but the exact same text on the outside and the same text and lay-out on the inside. It was advertised as roughly 11x3cm, I'll have to evaluate its properties when it arrives (I don't have any other Thuringian hone, so an evaluation as a finisher will have to do).

So thanks.

Originally Posted by Pithor

Great info, I had my eye on one and now decided to buy it (relatively cheap, I guess) on a local auction site. It comes in a blue box with a different font but the exact same text on the outside and the same text and lay-out on the inside. It was advertised as roughly 11x3cm, I'll have to evaluate its properties when it arrives (I don't have any other Thuringian hone, so an evaluation as a finisher will have to do).

So thanks.

Photos or it didn't happen!!!!!!!!!!