Thread: French Hones

What's the other smaller writing above that "user d' huile" part?

"Pour couteaux et outils"
To use with knives or fine tools...

Originally Posted by DennisBarberShop

What's the other smaller writing above that "user d' huile" part?

On the last line of the paper, I can read "ne pas user d'huile et de gra..." that I can translate it with "do not use oil or fat" so in French that indicates mineral or synthetic oil, it does not designate petroleum.

Originally Posted by doorsch

Here are some further two french friends....very interesting how far they travelled....

They were used from a german grandfather, probably for keeping his straights in condition but i do not really know...

Both looked like odd stones but i give it a try and both will have a new home here ;-)

1. in my point of view a Vosges / Vosgienne...it has a comparable pattern to the one i own already....light green inclusions on the other side red inclusions. Its visible on the slurry pics how different both sides look in colour...one sides slurry is brownish/red the other is more red then brown...

i dont know if its me but looking at the pictures you posted, this stone looks nothing like the Vosgienne, that im familiar with.

Originally Posted by Martin103

i dont know if its me but looking at the pictures you posted, this stone looks nothing like the Vosgienne, that im familiar with.

You might be right Martin, but thats a near sample like first one i owned...and their proposed as it...not here on SRP but on B&B..its different from The red or bluegreen Lune Stones and Special Stones with their matallic look....

What are the "definitions" of a Vosges youre familiar with ? I think it makes sense to talk about it or add pictures if you have some available Martin....

My newly acquired La Lune. I need to lap it a touch to kill some old scratches and max out the working surface. It's definitely not the same material as a Vosgienne. Very heavy stone as well. Should be fun.

this is a very good stone in France can be found oiled because the carpenter was using it to sharpen their wood chisels

It does not seem at all porous. I think you could probably use it with either water or oil at your discretion provided a light cleaning in between if you last used oil. There was oil on this but it didn't penetrate the surface at all really. I will lap to 2000, maybe a bit more if I can find some 2500. Excited to try this, it's one of the ultimate natural finishing stones from the western world.

After final lapping. I slurried a small soap bar of la grise coti over it a few times for good measure. Feels phenomenally fine. I finished a Robeson shuredge on it just now and it came off the hone incredibly keen. Feedback is completely different than the Vosgienne. The Vosgienne transfers almost no data to you, this has a funky feedback where it feels like you are pulling the blade over some superfine grit, yet to the touch you cannot feel anything. It is bizarre. The bevel was gleaming.

Got a third one at this stage iam uncertain if we talk about a Vosges Stone....its a type of a dark violet slate type....it was sold as a BBW but as i saw the surface it reminded me on the Vosges stones...

It has one indicator comparable to the other ones, these are the small black spots/dots which are visible on all three stones in a magnification of 10/20x...

So the first stone i got was light violet with green inclusions, the second had green and red inclusions in a more dark violet to brownish look (bronze when reflecting the light) the new one is a dark violet but only a small inclusion...

But the interesting thing was that this stone was delivered in a smal wooden Box comparable in size to the Goldfisch Stone or the Celebrated Water Hone. It was originally glued into to box, so i am shure it was sold as it was and the box was not selfmade....

The stone has sawmarks, and i remembered that ive seen comparable ones somewhere...i checked my smal "La Lune" stone from F.G.B.C.. So it looks like that the sawmarks are near identical, shure that this has not really to be a big deal but its an interesting fact...

Here are the pics:



La Lune at the bottom, not the same material/stone:


Sawmarks: