Thread: Hones Description article 1835

Originally Posted by DaveW

It looks like it was copied right out of holtzappfel volume 3.

It came from where it says it did at the top of Martin's article - Richard Knight.

He presented the Society of The Arts with a collection of hone stones and grindstones together with a descriptive catalogue. Richard Knight (1768-1844) was a founder member of the Geological Society of London (Sir Humphrey Davy was another founder member). The Society received its Charter from King George IV in 1825.

Knight was the son of an ironmonger who became a well regarded chemist and equipment designer and instrument maker in his day - he developed the first method of making platinum malleable, which had profound results on the work into alloys of Faraday and Stodart.

Regards,
Neil

Neil, what do you think about the coticule or thuringian confusion for the "German water hone" description?

Has there been convention in the UK to call coticules something else?

I'll tell you what irritates me .... the description of the Turkey stone. The greatest thing since sliced bread according to more than one writer from that era. A friend of mine in Missouri went on a mission buying Turkey stones both vintage and lately harvested. He had a mess of them and all he found out was they break easily and he never found one that surpassed the known naturals in the straight razor world. What were those folks, back then, finding coming out of Turkey ?

I gathered from the discussion of stones that the virtue of the turkey stones was that it was friable mixed among a sea of stones that weren't much so. either holtzappfel or somewhere else there was a description that led you to believe that a cutler or cabinetmaker may have flattened a turkey stone several times in the same session.

If you were sharpening turning tools, cabinetmaking tools, carpenters tools, etc, and forced to use only a charnley forest, an idwall or a hone slate, you would greatly appreciate the extra speed that you'd get from a friable stone, especially if some of the tools were on the hard side.

But for the final finish on a razor, friable in natural abrasive sizes is bad, right? They just couldn't be that fine, just like any other natural stone that sheds itself uncontrollably.

The later version that describes the washita stone would lead a razor user to figure that it is an ideal single stone, but they are just slightly too coarse for regular razor use. They are fantastic for carbon steel tools in the often presented fantasy dilemma of only being able to have and use one stone for complete maintenance of cutting tools. Probably would make a nice prep stone for a translucent on a razor, and I'm sure you could shave off of one, but it would be more of a challenge to see how you could do it rather than the hope that it would present itself as an ideal stone, right?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I'll tell you what irritates me .... the description of the Turkey stone. The greatest thing since sliced bread according to more than one writer from that era. A friend of mine in Missouri went on a mission buying Turkey stones both vintage and lately harvested. He had a mess of them and all he found out was they break easily and he never found one that surpassed the known naturals in the straight razor world. What were those folks, back then, finding coming out of Turkey ?

Sham has told me several times they are around 8k level only...

What we have to remember is that as recently as the 60’s & 70’s information was not as readily available and certainly not in the wealth and depth it is today. A lot of misinformation existed because the knowledge base just did not exist to dispute it.

Information was passed word of mouth and in books, so you had to buy the books or go to a library that had them. People used what was locally available and I’m sure vendors would say or brand whatever they could get away with. Like the internet… just because someone wrote it down does not mean it was true or accurate.

As of the 70’s Arkansas stones were, here in the US thought to be top of the line by most. An 8X3 Translucent or Black commanded 30-40 dollars, big money in those days, for a rock. Honing information and supplies came from your Barber, your information was limited to how much your barber knew or who his source was… the salesman.

Sham evidently has not tried enough of them, then. I think my views about some of his views are well known, so I'll say no more...

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by DaveW

I gathered from the discussion of stones that the virtue of the turkey stones was that it was friable mixed among a sea of stones that weren't much so. either holtzappfel or somewhere else there was a description that led you to believe that a cutler or cabinetmaker may have flattened a turkey stone several times in the same session.

If you were sharpening turning tools, cabinetmaking tools, carpenters tools, etc, and forced to use only a charnley forest, an idwall or a hone slate, you would greatly appreciate the extra speed that you'd get from a friable stone, especially if some of the tools were on the hard side.

But for the final finish on a razor, friable in natural abrasive sizes is bad, right? They just couldn't be that fine, just like any other natural stone that sheds itself uncontrollably.

The later version that describes the washita stone would lead a razor user to figure that it is an ideal single stone, but they are just slightly too coarse for regular razor use. They are fantastic for carbon steel tools in the often presented fantasy dilemma of only being able to have and use one stone for complete maintenance of cutting tools. Probably would make a nice prep stone for a translucent on a razor, and I'm sure you could shave off of one, but it would be more of a challenge to see how you could do it rather than the hope that it would present itself as an ideal stone, right?

The main thing here is defining what a 'Turkey Stone' actually is - or was. Even it's origins are obscure - The Levant, Crete (known as Candia in ancient times, hence 'candia' stone), Naxos/Oxa stone (Crete again - Naxos was a city on the Oxa mountain), Naxos (the Greek island, the eastern side was a source of emery in ancient times), Smyrna, etc, etc.

The older stones come in several shades, mainly black, dark grey and white. Among these the finest finishers - in excess of an 8k equivalent stone are found, as I know from experiments performed on very many of these stones.

The modern type - yes, there is a source and many people use them - are an inferior stone. This is the type that Sham tested, as I well remember from the pics of the stones he had. Used with water, with a heavy slurry, they set bevels and cut quickly. As the slurry is worked it becomes finer, and in effect you pass through several grades of stone. Many people from the old Coticule.be website use this type of turkey stone in conjunction with a coticule, finishing with the coticule. As I would (again, from very, very many experiments) average out a mid-range coticule as being equivalent to at least a 10k stone, then I can well believe the newer turkey stones top-out at 8k or less. However, if steeped in oil for a few weeks (olive oil is fine) and then used with oil, they cut a bit finer.

The modern type is not as prone to fracturing as the old type - I have large slabs of it that show no sign of fracturing at all. The older type seems very prone to fracturing, usually comes in odd-sized pieces due to its propensity to crack, and is often confined tightly in a tailor-made wooden base to prevent it separating. Every old one I have seen has been used with oil.

The name seems to have become a blanket-type designation for fast-cutting hones leaving fine edges. In time the practice of calling any such hone a 'turkey stone' was adopted, no matter where it came from. There are instances of welsh hones being called turkey stone (as well as 'grecian') as well as arkansas hones, even though the originals appear not to be novaculite (nor slate-like, for that matter).

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by DaveW

Neil, what do you think about the coticule or thuringian confusion for the "German water hone" description?

Has there been convention in the UK to call coticules something else?

I'm not sure, Dave. As you say, there is a lot of confusion. The only different names used in the past for coticules were 'old rock' belgian hone and belgian yellow stone. In the time I spent in art departments learning screen and intaglio printing, the suppliers catalogues always mentioned german blue and grey polishing stones.

What is for sure is that there is/was extensive quarrying in Regensburg/Bavarian area. Regensburg, BTW, is the same as Ratisbon. Hugh Murray (1779 - 1846) in his Encyclopaedia of Geography mentions many of the rock types from the region and includes gneiss. horneblende, lydian stone, clay-slates, silica-slates, garnet-bearing rocks, slate-whetstones, sandstones, marbles, limestones etc, etc. There is a sample of ratisbon hone in a US museum that has been analysed and found comparable with the belgian coticule. An 1892 volume of The Mechanical News says that the ratisbon razor hone and blue polishing stone may be found as an outcrop in a river bed in the area - Ratisbon is in Bavaria at the joining of the Danube and Regen rivers.

Until it is proven otherwise, I have no especial difficulty in trusting that there was indeed a yellow ratisbon razor hone. Note that the early sources say 'near Ratisbon' so it is probable that Ratisbon was a distribution centre for german-mined products.

Regards,
Neil

wow that was a great read i didnt know that the liyn idwall and the cutters green stone come from snowdon . both stones are green i wonder if the cutters green is really a liyn idwall stone ?