Thread: Panama Hone, some questions

Okay, so about six months ago I bought something called 'Panama Hone' at a antique shop, as it appeared to be a barber's hone. Pretty well all I wound up using if for was as a substrate for micro abrasive sheets. However last night I was playing with it a bit.

There are two sides to it, one medium greyish tone side, which whips up a slurry when you use it. It appears to refine an edge that came off of 5 micron microabrasive (I've used it a few times as a step between 5 and .5 micron). The black side, however, is a total mystery too me. Lapping it produces a brownish greeny slurry of some sort, but honing a razor on it does not. Until recently I hadn't fully lapped the black side to get rid of a few deepish pockmarks that were in it, so I've never used it to hone and not dulled a razor. I started playing with it last night, after I finished re-honing my rotation, so I don't feel like dulling them down if it is less fine, but...

I've noticed a couple strange properties of the black side. For one, when you run your finger over it, it's so smooth it almost feels like your finger is just slightly sinking in to it, like running your finger over a sheet on a bed. It feels super, super soft to the touch despite the fact I know it's quite hard. Also, it dries so fast you can watch it dry in 15 or so seconds after running it under the tap if yoi hold it on it's side. Also, if you put a drop of water on it, and tilt it around, the drop of water moves most of the time without even leaving a trace of where it's been (when the drop moves, the stone is already dry under it).

Does anyone have any explanation for this? Any guess as to the grit size?

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, I just woke up. :P

I've never heard of that brand of hone...but I'm sure there are a LOT that I haven't heard of!

So it sounds like the black side is a really fine and non-porous stone, which would explain why water doesn't absorb into it at all.

I really don't know what it could be, but could you take/post some pictures of it? It'll help identify the hone, as well as give us some nice pictures to look at!

It could be due to it being non porous. It also may have been contaminated with oil at some stage. I'm not saying it has. It's just a consideration.