Antique shop find/ good ?

Gents, I found this hone but have no idea of origin. I have been a collector for more years that I care to admit, the box appears to have age. I would guess its at least 50 to 75 years, perhaps older. The stone is slightly dished out in the middle. I ran it under water with a bit of dish soap to clean it up a bit. I is about 1.75 inches wide and 8 inchesAttachment 114777 long. Running my fingers over the stone it feels very smooth,

I am going to guess that I need to lap the stone. I think there will be a lot of work for that. I have a DMT that is smaller than the stone I need to lap. It's blue and I was told it was a medium grit. I got it for sharping knives. Could I use that?

I'd use 400 (or coarser to get the dish out) on a granite tile or thick glass and see what you end up with.

I nearly ruined my DMT using it on a really hard synthetic stone (and I still don't know what it is...:mad:)

It need to be lapped for sure. You could use sandpaper instead of DMT. Check Youtube for tutorial.
It is hard to tell for sure what the hone is it until you lap it.

Well..this might be a little bold. But I'd say you found an Arkansas stone. Not particularly effective for razor honing. And very difficult to make flat again.

Honestly, the best thing you can do if you have an interest in honing is to buy some brand new synthetic stones, and start learning. Trust me, there'll be plenty natural stones sitting in antique stores for you to play with later.

If you have an interest in collecting old stones, I suggest you limit yourself to pristine stones with a label indicating it's purpose was for razors. But ofc, it's your collection. Fill it with whatever turns your screw I suppose. :)

Gents, thanks for the responses so far. I think I will get some sandpaper and have a go at lapping the stone. Who knows it on may be a diamond in the rough. In the state it's very smooth, so I guess I can hope :-) If nothing else I will get some practice on lapping a stone. If it turns out decent I'll update the thread.

I would be so bold as to say you have yourself a fine India stone, an oilstone good with knives. Really good with knives!

Do us a favor, clean her up (undress her, so to speak);); then get us some photos.
We will figure out what she is.

Dunno what it is but someone got some serious use out of it. Didn't get dished just sitting in that box so we know it is good for something. :gl:

Gents, I have never been encouraged to "undress her" in a pubic forum but what the heck, there is a first time for everything.

The box seems to be original with the stone, as it's fitted in nice and secure. You can tell by the condition of the box, the wear, weight of the top, and other subtle tells that its not new. But then we only have 12 years into the new century :-) Something else, the stone and wooden base seems to be heavier than I expected. The top seems very light, I suspect because it has dried out quit a bit.


I guess a glass of wine, romantic music, and appropriate lighting to get the old gal to undress is in order :-)

I think you better throw in a nice bottle of Simple Green & a scrub brush. :)

one of two stones as i see it. it could be an india stone or a hindostan clean it up and lets see what you have

Attachment 114881 Gents, I have take the first steps, baby steps at that, to get the old girl undressed. As you can see there will be a significant amount of lapping required. But I was able to get an idea on the color of the stone and some idea on the smoothness. It is really smooth, I have been lapping a new Thuringian hone I just purchased new and to an untrained individual like me.....the brownish one seems to be nearly as smooth as the Thuringian stone. I am going to go out today and look for some wet/dry sandpaper that is coarser than the 400 I have tried - and a medium grit DMT (is that right?) which is smaller than the stone I want to lap.

I almost forgot, as I had the stone under the tap, I was getting an old oil smell.....don't know if that's important to the discussion.

More and more like Arkie. Good luck with lapping.

the stone is coming out good. does it have any banding or layering on the side of the stone?

I have not had time to work on the stone, tis the season and all of the rushing around. I had not planned on working the sides other than to smooth down the edges.

Should I try to clean the edges ? I would not feel comfortable in taking the stone off it's base. The antique collector in me wants to keep the look and feel of an old piece. The practical side wants to use the stone if possible. So I don't mind lapping, but do want to keep the integrity of the stone. Does that make sense?

As I make a bit more progress I suppose that question will be answered........

It will have to come out of the box. Hold the stone in your hand and tap down on one end of the box with a small hammer, it will pop out. Then spray with oven cleaner and let it sit for 15 mins, scrape the gunk off with a putty knife. Spray again and scrub with a stainless steel toothbrush and rinse in warm water.

Then soak in 50% Simple Green & water for a few days and change the solution until it stops releasing oil.

I have some soaking for months, it depends on how much oil is in it. Lap it on some 60-80 grit Silicon Carbide & a granite tile, it won't take that long. If it's a Ark it will trash your DMT quickly. Finish on Wet and Dry.

Gents, Attachment 115174 this is a top and side view from a little more work on the stone. As of now it has a nice brown leather look, and as you can see has a bit of a dish still. There does seem to be a lot of black oil in the stone and has a bit of an old oil smell as well. Do you have to have it perfectly flat to use as a hone? It seems like that would take a lot of the stone....

Some questions that may seem silly....
1) Does oil soak into the stone? If so does that adversely effect the performance of the stone?
2) Why take it out of the box if I can smooth down the top and 4 sides?
3) Because I have so little experience with stones will I just have to try using it on a razor of various degrees of sharpness to determine if it's a good stone to use for them?

Thanks for the help so far! Please continue to give me advice gents!

cleaning the sides of the stone is to see if there is any banding if so than it would be a hindostan stone if not then an ark or india stone . if you want to hone with a razor on that stone it will need to be flat for knives not so much so.

You do not have to take stone out. I have done it few times. You just lap what is protruding out. What you need is either hand held continuous dimond plate or your sandpaper attached right to the edge of your lapping tile. As you would not be using tha side for honing therefore it does not need to be too perfect. To protect the wooden base put some tape over it.

If you want to clean it completely and remove the oil smell, it will have to come out. If you take it out of the box, chances are the “bottom” is pristine & and much closer to flat than the other side. You can clean the box and put it back.

I have several dished stones that I just use the bottom and don’t bother lapping a 1/4 inch off the stone.

Yes years, possibly many years of oil have seeped deep in the stone. If you want to get it out it will take soaking or in a bath of some soap in a slow cooker. Oven cleaner & Simple Green work best for me. If it took years to get in, it will take weeks, months to get out. It will not generally degrade performance, it may just enhance it, but you will tire of the smell on your stone, hands and razor.

It does not have to be perfectly flat, just perfectly smooth. If it is not flat only a portion of the blade will be in contact with the stone compounding the amount work and error.
If you are learning to hone, remove as many variables, to insure success. Which is why, it is recommended to learn on perfectly flat, known grit synthetic stones.

You can learn to drive in a manual drive, twitchy, full blown race car, but it is so much easier to learn in an automatic Honda Accord.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by adrspach

More and more like Arkie. Good luck with lapping.

---

That would be my guess.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eleblu05

the stone is coming out good. does it have any banding or layering on the side of the stone?

---

I did one side, it does not look like there is any layer or band. The side looks much the same as the top.

I hit it with 80 grit on our marble countertop, then 120, followed by 400 wet. It looks flat now I want to finish up with 600 grit. I'll get a photo later, the color is a much lighter shade of brown now, I wonder if thats just old darkened oil? I will get the stone out of the wooden box and start to soak. Have not seen "Green" around here..... would regular dish soap work?

Use "DAWN" or something like that if you have it, it is designed to break down oil and grease.

Arkies work best with oil, so there's not really a need to clean them. I would just use it as is for knives.