Removing a hone from it's box

I won an auction for a box of old barber supplies, mainly because I was interested in the hone that came with it (looked like a Yellow Green Escher in the pics, alas it's not.) Anyway, the hone has a chip along one of the edges, serious enough to mean that I can't use the entire length of the stone, and I would like to know if anyone has found a way of extracting hones that are glued into their wooden boxes without damaging the them.
I'm thinking either a heat gun to try and melt the adhesive (don't think this will work because the hone appears to be mounted very deeply into the box) or some kind of industrial solvent (would like to get a rough idea of what I need before I start experimenting with potentially dangerous chemicals.)
I don't care about saving the box, I just want to get the hone free and see if I can use the other side to it's full potential.
Also, I would be interested to know if anyone can help identify the stone. I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but lacking any semblance of photographic skill, I gave up on learning to use a digital camera many moons ago.
Anyhow, the stone appeared to be just like a Y/ G Escher in the auction photo's, but in person it is a dark blue colour (much like a Dark Blue Escher) but it is mottled with a tan brown colour, at first I thought this was just years of accumulated dirt, but after nuking the stone with oven cleaner, Vulpex soap and a scouring pad it remains the same.
It is as smooth as glass to the touch, but makes a very audible scraping sound when dragging a razor across the surface (wet, at least as wet as this stone will allow itself to get or dry.) This is a very hard stone, much harder than the Arkansas stones I have, and it is proving to be a complete PITA to lap it flat. The stone doesn't give up any kind of a slurry and water will not stay on it's surface, it's almost as if the stone is working to repel the water.
I haven't tried any proper honing on it yet, like I mentioned it's not yet properly lapped, but I did do 50 or so strokes on an SSA Eskilituna razor, and despite the awful scraping sound, it didn't do any damage to the edge, or much of anything else for that matter.
Despite the audible feedback, I found this stone rather peculiar because being so smooth there isn't any "feeling" of contact or interaction between the blade edge and the hone, if it wasn't for the sound you wouldn't think anything was happening.
Finally, if you look at the stone in the right light, the surface appears to shimmer with tiny dots that give of a silvery/ white glow, much like the novaculite in an Arkansas.
Any ideas what it could be?
Kind regards,
Alex

...Pictures?

EDIT: Oh, you already addressed this!

I will be attempting the same experiment as you soon. I picked up a small FOX razor hone in a wood box (The Best in the World" according to the paper label). I wonder if the adhesive is heat sensitive. I thought about putting mine in the oven and heating it gradually to maybe 300 degrees? If it's not heat sensitive then it's probably cutting up the box and sanding the box bottom off the bottom of the stone.

The only thing that's keeping me from doing this is contemplating any collector value of this particular stone in box. Then again, if heat releases the stone I could always glue it back in......

Chris L

Your hone could be a charnley forest. Mine is grey and has brown veins in it. It give a very scratchy noise in use.

Been there , done that. I bought an antique Tam in a wood box. Since getting the wood wet couldn't be avoided when lapping the wood would warp enough to affect the stone and it wouldn't stay flat.

I thought about heat but talked to Randydance about it and I took his advice. The glue on those old stones is usually water soluble. I soaked the stone/box in a container for a couple of days and it peeled off easily.

No harm to the rock or to the box. I now keep it in the box and there is no problem with it staying flat. Best of luck with your new stone.

I'd try sawing between the base and the stone with a hacksaw.
another thing I'd try is twisting them apart or split the wood with a chisel. But since that could hurt the stone it would depends exactly on what I'd think after examining the stone in detail.

An old friend of mine recently started her own company in the high-end custom furniture world, and whilst she's relatively new to the business herself, she has made an impressive number of contacts and was able to put me in touch with a gentleman who might be able to help identify the stone. So far I have only spoken with him briefly over the phone, but based on my description of the stone, and the way it acts when in use, he said he thought it was most likely a Charnley Forest hone, but not one that came from the Whittle Hill quarry. I know that many regard Whittle Hill stones as being the finest quarried from the area, but I don't know why this is nor do I know how he was able to say my particular hone didn't come from there.
Going off-topic here, but I must say he is a very interesting person to talk too, turns out that he used to run one of those old fashioned multi-purpose hardware stores,the kind that have become extinct due to competition with faceless DIY superstores; and straight razor sharpening was one of the services he used to provide. It was more than a little depressing when told me that apart from his own razors (which he still uses despite many problems caused by his advancing years) it must be getting on for twenty years since anyone else has asked him to hone a straight. I told him about SRP, and a recent boon in the interest in traditional shaving but unfortunately he has no access to the internet.
I was hoping it would transpire that he had a large number of rare hones just sitting around collecting dust, but he sold off his store inventory when it closed down fifteen years ago. However when I mentioned Cambrock silkstones he became quite animated, it turns out that he sold a number of NOS from his store and while he was very impressed with them for razors he sold them off and never thought to keep any for himself. He didn't know anything else about these stones either, but seemed pleasantly surprised that anyone else even knew of their existance.
When I asked about what he used to hone his own razors on, and the ones in his store more than twenty years ago, he said he used a machinists lapping plate with a coarse compound to set the bevel and then simply polished them on a German waterstone first with slurry then without; no complex honing ratios, no hones of gradually increasing grit, just bevel then polish. He has a no name ceramic hone that he said was very old, for when a razor wouldn't work with the compound but that's it. The natural German waterstones were the best razor hones available in his opinion, and although he didn't mention any particular brand names I'll assume he was talking about Thuringen hones.
Anyway, the hone is en route to him now so hopefully I'll know more when he has a chance to examine it properly.
P.S For anyone still interested in removing a hone from it's box, he concurred with Randydance that the adhesive would more than likely be water-soluble and that simply soaking the stone should allow it's release without too much trouble.
Kind regards,
Alex

A very interesting and informative post. I have often wondered what methods were used for setting bevels in the old days as it seems that most of the vintage hones that have survived are more finishers then bevel setters. I never would have thought of a machinist's lapping plate and compound.

Also the regard he held the German waterstones in is interesting. Being in the hardware business and honing razors for customers he probably had access to the whole range of available stones. The negative side of your post for me is that now I have a burning desire to acquire a Charnley Forest hone from the Whittle Hill quarry. :w

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimmyH-AD

The negative side of your post for me is that now I have a burning desire to acquire a Charnley Forest hone from the Whittle Hill quarry. :w

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....Yep!!!

HAD is bad enough but B(ritish)HAD is worse. What's really frustrating is that I used to live about an hours drive away from the Whittle Hill quarry, and I never even knew it was there.
There are some snippets of information on the web, the topography of the county of Leicester is very varied and there are a number of scholarly articles out there that discuss the area in a geological context, but nothing about the Whittle Hill quarry (like contact details, if it is still operational) in any detail.
The following comes from "A Topographic History of the County of Leicester."
" One of them, Whittle Hill, about four miles from Loughborough, is valuable as furnishing excellent hones, or whetstones."
There is also a mention of the Whittle Hill stones on this site http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/sharphistory.html
So now I have to worry about finding a genuine Whittle Hill stone as well as a Cambrock Silkstone.
Kind regards,
Alex

Had another quick chat with the gentleman this morning, here are the recorded highlights:
1: Having seen the stone in person, he no longer thinks that it is a Charnley Forest stone
2: He thinks it is an atypical German waterstone
3: The brown colouration on the top of the stone is just an accumulation of dirt which he removed with an industrial strength granite surface plate cleaner
4: The brown on the side of the stone is the colour of the hone itself, maybe the surrounding rock from which the stone was cut
5: He couldn't lap it by hand either, but an industrial lapping machine with diamond slurry did the trick
6: 300 strokes and it put a finer polish on a blade than his other German waterstones
7: He estimates grit to be >16k but less than 20k
8: It doesn't raise a slurry at all
9: It's being sent on to an associate of his who is going to do a complete mineralogical analysis of the stone.

I'll keep everyone posted as to the outcome.
Kind regards,
Alex

I had forgotten all about this topic until I recieved a PM from a member asking what conclusions had been reached regarding this particular stone. The member in question thought that this might be of further interest to other members here so I have cut and pasted my original reply.
I heard back from the person I sent the stone to quite some time ago, but as I traded that stone for another stone he had in his collection I never bothered to ask him to send me a copy of the analysis.
Based on a phone conservation I had with him, he concluded that the stone was a typical silica hone as found in a number of regions in Germany. What made this one different was the fact that a lot of the rock surrounding the vein where you would normally find the hone material was taken out with it, and then it was glued into the box the wrong way round. This explains why it was so hard and such a slow cutting hone.
As far as the shimmering particles that I thought looked similiar to Noviculite are concerned, these turned out to be crystallised honing oil, although I don't know why these weren't washed away when I cleaned the stone.
The geologist who did the analysis, wanted to keep it as a curio, that's all.
So what started out as an interesting little mystery turned out to be nothing more than a mistake at the mine!
Hope this is of at least some interest to you.
Kind regards,
Alex