Thread: Yeloow Slurry Stone for Yellow/Blue Stones?

Originally Posted by blueprinciple

I do like trying new things out though and purchased what the seller called a 'turkey stone' from a flea fair (as in from Turkey, I think - well I hope . Lapped it up and it cuts quite well. Never heard of it though

Roy Underhill describes his search for the long closed quarry in one of his Woodwright's series of books The Companion iIrc. Again from my failing memory it was a greenish colored stone from Georgia USA. If you're interested I'll try to dig that book up to see what it really says

Originally Posted by English

How do I know, Europe is my back garden that's how I know. Hype just doesn't cut it when you know better.

I hope this helps.

You have several holes in your argument.

1. Just because they built with it does not mean that it was not also used to hone. You would not look very far for materials long ago, so you built with local stone. Now you can ship materials father and can build with shipped stone much more cheaply.

2.You assume that people of the past where any less susceptible to hype and popularity trends than they are now. It seems less likely as people here have access to stones from all around the world and the best that modern technology can come up with. If the stone was clearly bad it would come out instantly.

So hype might well influence personal preference, but a lousy hone is still a lousy hone and will be self evident.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I am so lost!!!!
Blue, yellow, green, yellow-green, blue-green..... OMG I so love stones that give grit sizes

Is there anyone, anywhere, that can actually say for certain, what grit, any natural stone is?????
or is it all just a matter of opinion????

You could measure a specific stone, or give generalities about a type of stone, but nature is not consistent.

Perhaps a new thread could be started with this current blue Belgian debate, and let this thread get back on track.

Here is a reminder of the ORIGINAL POST:

Originally Posted by loueedacat

I have a yellow coticule and yellow coticule slurry (cotigura) stone. I'm buying a blue coticule.

Any reason not to use the same yellow coticule slurry stone on both my yellow and blue coticule hones?

As long as I wash the slurry stone in between, any risk I'll import the coarser blue stuff to my yellow hone that way [ie any risk of cross contamination]?

So I tried it out yesterday (yellow rubbing stone on blue honing stone) and it did work, there was a definite mixture of the two stones though.

I don't use the belgians for fast cutting enough to notice a difference, but the fact that there was coticule slurry in with the blue slurry suggests that the cutting effect could be different, and the edge will still only be as fine as the coarsest particles.


p.s. This is yet another reason that everyone who is serious about honing ought to own at least one diamond plate: instant slurry on any stone with a free lapping while your at it.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

So I tried it out yesterday (yellow rubbing stone on blue honing stone) and it did work, there was a definite mixture of the two stones though.

I don't use the belgians for fast cutting enough to notice a difference, but the fact that there was coticule slurry in with the blue slurry suggests that the cutting effect could be different, and the edge will still only be as fine as the coarsest particles.


p.s. This is yet another reason that everyone who is serious about honing ought to own at least one diamond plate: instant slurry on any stone with a free lapping while your at it.

Russel, thank you. I do actually own a DMT 325 and didn't think of just giving the blue a qucik minilap to get the slurry going. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread back to it's original questions.

A couple of other thoughts - don't people rave that the yellow slurry is a better cutter than the blue - maybe a little yellow slurry and blue course isn't a bad mixture? Or is that dumb?

And also, if you use eht DMT to start the slurry, do you end up with any DMT particles in the slurry?

The particles on the DMT plate are diamonds. Unlike the stone hones in which small bits of the stone are constantly flaked off to produce the slurry, the diamonds do not break apart.

(The following is entirely speculation on my part.)

Of course over time they are likely to eventually come off of the plate, but this will be one by one and will not contribute to a slurry. However, it would be likely to put a microchip in the blade but the single diamond would probably be pushed aside on the hone fairly quickly.

Well, with all of the diamond hones, there is a break-in period where some of the diamonds fracture a little bit to become more level with the other diamonds. But once that is done, there is very little change to the surface and the particles are pretty safely considered as fixed to the stone.

Mr. So, the owner of japan-tool.com, recommends using diamond plates on the finest Japanese stones that he sells because using a nagura that is anything short of a small piece that was cut off of the original stone will introduce grit particles that are a lower grit, effectively negating the usefulness of the slurry. And if he recommends it, then it is good enough for me (I don't think there is a more enviable privately owned collection of stones anywhere in the world).

(p.s. vBulletin is somehow editing my language, it doesn't like So's last name, Yama****a)

after lapping my coticule the first couple times the razor felt like it was bumping up against something small - I wonder if tiny diamond particles that came off were the culprit. Interesting.

It's possible, but I would be surprised if the diamond stayed in the coticule after being honed on wwith a razor, seems like it would be dislodged fairly easily.

Did you round over the edges and corners of the stone? A rough edge could give a similar feeling.