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If possible, can anyone ID these hones found at a local antique store? The dealer was not available to answer any questions concerning anything in the showcase they came out of. I purchased them for $8.00 each hoping they might prove to be worthy of use with straights/honing. The shorter of the two has both a slightly coarse side and a very smooth side. The longer thinner one has a similar smooth side both top and bottom. Any guesses?
Nice find for the price Mike. The larger of the two looks like it is dirty with a lighter color underneath ? Almost looks like a coticule with two sides if it wasn't so dark. One side wouldn't feel rougher though. Neither looks to have had much use.
The longer one reminds me of a dark blue Escher but I don't know. If you clean them up and lap them you can give them a try and see how they cut. I would be interested to see if they are a different color when lapped. If there is an oily feel Howard says he has used oven cleaner to get rid of that.
IMO the larger stone looks like your standard old dirty silicon carbide stone with a coarse and fine side. I'd say a coticule would be a long shot on that one.
They look like they could be carborundums. I wouldn't use them on my razor without trying them on a pocketknife and looking at the scratch pattern under 20-30x magnification.
You'd probably always know a old silicon carbide type from a much finer coticule by feeling the surface, I'd imagine.
not always. Often times the silicon carbide / carborundum stones are used with oil and get gunky then super glazed over. My dad has one thats as smooth as anything. You just have to scrape off the gunk to get to the stone, and that's when things get rougher.
i have one that looks like the smaller one.. it's smooth as glass, almost. i don't even know what it is.
The bottom one looks like a carborundum one that I have. If I remember right mine is number 111. When I got mine, both sides seemed quite rough, and had lots of oil on it. Cleaned it up and then lapped it. Well, I'm still currently lapping it because it had some quite bad chips in it (how do you get chips in the middle of a hone?). It is very hard and taking me a very long time to lap.
However, the bits that are lapped seem super smooth, and appear to be a higher grit than my 8k Norton. But won't be able to tell until it is fully lapped.
Steven