Paakkolan öljyhiettä

During our visit to Ilkka Tuomaala (Wastikivi) in Orivesi the conversation came on other whetstones in Finland. Wait said Ilkka went away and came back with an old Paakkolan öljyhiettä. Unfortunately, not much is known about this stone. Perhaps one of the SRP members knows something more about it. The stone is now part of my collection. Google translation produces an unreadeble text. The Finnish text reads as follows:

Paakkolan öljyhiettä käytetään vain vilmeistelyhiontaan ja mieluimmin puhtaalla mineralöljyllä - koneöljyllä – kostutettuna. Nämä öljykivet valmisttetaan taatusti tasalaatuisesta, kovista meneraalikidenystyöistä vapaasta ja kauttaaltaan samankovuisesta, parhaasta kovasinkivesta. Siksi omaakin paakolan öljyhie korkemmat hiontakivelle asettetut vaatimukset ja vertailukokeissa saavutettujen
Tulosten mukaan antaa yhtä hyvan työtuloksen laatun ja hionta-aikaan nähden kuin tunnetuimmat ja kalleimmat ulkolaiset kaovasinkivet. Laatu B koko 180x55x10 mm.

When to babel fish. Translation is incomplete. But.. Give the impression that it's man made?? Don't know?

Have no experience in Paakkola stones in special but that is an oil stone made for finishing. Would be ok with knives but probably not with razors. Having said that, probably men of the old used such stones for finishing their razors as well. Unlike today, there was not wide selection of exotic stones available, but you had to get along just what you had.
Paakkola was probably just one of those small producers.

The stone is natural, made of phyllite, known as a 'grey gold'. Can be found in Orivesi as few other areas here. Phyllite was and is a material for honing stones. First time it was known to used for honing is from 1600. Industrial production started widely at 1885 and they were also exported mostly to Russia, Estonia, Germany, Turkey, Lithuania and Latvia, and after WW1 they were also exported to middle Europe, Balkans and middle East, some to USA and South America too.
Phyllite is used for decorative stones and garden corridors etc as well because it's cheap and immune to weather no matter how bad or cold or wet it goes.
Modern Wästikivi stones is still maybe most common here, and very cheap too. Nowadays it is used for honing with water mostly.

Here's a link to Wästikivi (English) site.

Good to see you back from hone hunting trip. I hope it was as successfull as your UK trip. This hone looks tempting.

The Paakkolan stone is very fine and it likes finer than DT.

We now Wästikivi. We were three days guest at Ilkko and collect a pile of stones and knowledge. I am now writing the story for part 3 "Grinding and Honing". We now have eight pages...

Nowadays there are not too many producers left for honing stones. Wästikivi is most known of them. Their stones are available in almost any hard ware store or gas station (where they still sell tools).
Had to check prices from few local stores earlier today. Pocket size stones start from say 5 €, and normal sizes are about 10-20 €. Large bench stones are much more, maybe about 100 €.

Cannot say anything exact about the grit. Probably will pick up one later to check how it performes with my knives and maybe to test with a razor too. Cannot say if it has anything to do with the stone is OP, because these modern stones are meant to use with water.
For what i know, Wästi stones are described as medum/fine, quite hard, long lasting and very resistant to cold and water (last two are very important here).

Traditionally you only had one stone that was good for everything you did. Today, these traditional stones has largely been replaced with the cheaper artificial stones (that aren't even cheaper).

But, the tradition of having one stone still lives on. If you tell any old timer or Sami people that you need four different stones to sharpen your knife, they will shake their head and tell you to practice your skills some more. And laugh as you go :rofl2:

There are 2 types: the gray Wastikivi from Wastilla and the blue Kuntaliitoskivi from Orivesi. The Kuntaliitoskivi has 2 variations: light blue and dark blue. The gray Wastikivi grain = about 1000 and the light blue Kuntaliitoskivi about 3000. The dark blue is about 3 times as hard (1500 gram) as the light-blue (500 gram) that approximately corresponds to k 5000.

As the majority of the grain fyliet has an oval flat shape. This has the consequence that there are three possibilities for the grinding.
1. The shiny part is best suited to grinding.
2. At right angles and parallel to the thread direction of the color is gray. This side has a finer grinding operation.
3. The short side has an even finer grinding operation and is suitable for polishing.

Am now trying to figure out a chunk Kuntaliitoskivi a natural combo to cut the stone to further testing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Margeja

There are 2 types: the gray Wastikivi from Wastilla and the blue Kuntaliitoskivi from Orivesi. The Kuntaliitoskivi has 2 variations: light blue and dark blue. The gray Wastikivi grain = about 1000 and the light blue Kuntaliitoskivi about 3000. The dark blue is about 3 times as hard (1500 gram) as the light-blue (500 gram) that approximately corresponds to k 5000.

As the majority of the grain fyliet has an oval flat shape. This has the consequence that there are three possibilities for the grinding.
1. The shiny part is best suited to grinding.
2. At right angles and parallel to the thread direction of the color is gray. This side has a finer grinding operation.
3. The short side has an even finer grinding operation and is suitable for polishing.

Am now trying to figure out a chunk Kuntaliitoskivi a natural combo to cut the stone to further testing.

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Lol. Thanks for info. Just read that two-sided 'kuntaliitoskivi' is about 1000/4000 and all Wästi stones are good with both mineral oil and water (but you cannot use both).

I'm getting curious about these stones. I have all kinds of unnamed vintage stones in some of my garage boxes. Have to check them out, because i'm pretty sure that some, if not most must be old Finnish stones. Or then i have to get me one soon.
I will try to find if there's any more info available about these stones in Finnish knife/woodworking related sites. I'm pretty sure there must be as some of those folks are really masters with traditional tools, arts & crafts.

Off topic: Although there's official 'Finnish' (written) language (that nobody actually speaks), but Finnish language actually consists of different dialects spoken on different parts of the country. For example, as they say 'cold' in the eastern dialects, that actually means 'strange' or 'weird' here, and that is why we southwesterners find it sometimes easier to understand Estonian or Swedish than what they speak in some distant part of the country.

That is also why i thought WTF when i read about your term 'kuntaliitoskivi'. That has a strange meaning here and i thought that you have misread, translated or understood the term incorrectly. After little check i found out i was wrong (once again). They actually use such name somewhere there.
Well, you live, you learn....

You made a few typos, but the Finnish text says it is to be used wet, ideally with a pure mineral oil, such as fine machine oil. It is guaranteed to be of consistent quality, free from hard inclusions and instead utterly homogeneous. Experiments showed it holds up to comparison with the best and most expensive outdoor hones in terms of quality and performance in terms of abrasion speed.