Thread: Frictionites - other than #00s

Since pictures were requested and these aren't going to be for sale for quite a while, here's what arrived in the mail today.

I guess looking at the pictures, I'll need to get some better ones.

The escher is a side item, I bought it on ebay hoping the seller had mismeasured the thickness (they said 1/2 inch) but they were right, it's been very heavily used. I just thought I'd show the mess. I paid half a mint for it, which I guess is fair for half thickness.

Attachment 104502

Interesting! What are the dimensions on those Frictionites?

Couple of more, so that we can read the stuff on the packages. First pictures were nasty, sorry about that. This one has a picture of the little #00, totally unused. The guy who owns them said he thought he hadn't used the big #00, but it is unfortunately got some cracking in the surface, and it's got metal swarf on both sides of the stone, so someone sharpened a chisel on it. I'll lap that off before I help him unload it.

The coticule, I'm going to keep. It's between that and the super punjab. The coti is a sweet stone, but it is *incredibly* abrasive. It was also unused until I just used it. The super punjab has been tried out by the owner, too, and has a little crazing so I ran a razor across it on the fine side. It's a very nice abrasive, it feels very smooth, but it's not too soft. It's miles better than the two inexpensive razor hones that I have. Lest anyone think I'm taking advantage of the owner by lifting the coti from the bunch (with his permission), I sent him my tormek earlier this year. Most people won't know what that is, but if you do, you'll know that on the best day for the coticule, that's a very fair trade.

Originally Posted by roughkype

Interesting! What are the dimensions on those Frictionites?

The big ones are 2 1/2 x 8 inches, and the smaller #00 is 2.25x4.5 inches. The super punjab is 2x4 inches.

Oh man i've been waiting to see his fabled stack o' stones for a while and this did not disappoint!!

James - you certainly know the owner of the stones. If you're not sure who it is, woodworking and all of the talk about sypdercos should tip you off.

Yep! That belgian looks sweet too. Is it glued?

I think it is, but it is not nearly as obvious that it's glued as the new ones are. (they have a pore filling kind of grainy looking glue). The line on this one is sort of obscured and uneven, but the back doesn't seem like belgian blue. It looks like slate, but i'm not sure I looked close enough to be sure. I was too jacked up about the yellow side to check the label side out much, other than to make a glance at the transition line and be confused why it looked like a natural combo but the back didn't look quite as much like one.

Not that it matters, but I remembered wrong about the belgian combo, it's a natural combo. It's got a very plain side profile look in the blue, like slate, but the trademark sort of embedded strawberry seed look on the surface of the blue side of the hone. The label covers most of the blue side, though, and I don't want to lose the label so I'll not ever use the blue side.

The line on one side where the blue and yellow meet is somewhat straight and on the other side very wavy.

I would think the deep rock is bbw on the label side. I've had a couple and that is what they were. Same with a couple of 'Old Rock' labeled stones that have come and gone. One natural and the other glued. It is interesting that when I bought a few coticules from barbers in the 1980s .... individual barbers .... they all told me that the yellow side was the side to hone on. The other side was only for reinforcement.

When I first got Deep Rock and Old Rock labeled cotis that was proved by the glued label on the bbw side. I've been led to understand that it is only in the last decade or so that the bbw has been recognized as a viable hone. I also read that there are different grades of bbw and that some of it is only suitable for paving stones or building blocks. At least that is what I've read. It was on the internet so it must be true.