A friend of mine works for an auction company and gave me the "in" on a lot of razors and hones. Picked up several great razors and a couple hones. One was a barber's hone. The other was this guy...didn't get pics of original condition...it looked like someone had bread-knifed all over the thing. So I lapped it and tried it out with a clunker razor.
In lapping it gave off a brownish gray wash, but in honing it gave off a dark gray wash, and not much of it. Really, it may have been the razor more than it was the stone. It was SUPER slow. It lapped fairly quickly so I figured it was soft and would maybe work as a bevel setter. After honing and honing it's clearly a hard smooth stone. There's nearly a mirror finish on it now compared to when it was freshly lapped.
I have no experience with naturals, so I really don't know what this is, but wondered if it might be a Black Arkansas?
It's about 1" x 6", sitting on a Norton 8k. Definitely feels smoother than the 8k.
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Thanks for any input!
Peace,
Jim