Italian slate hones?

Anyone familiar w/ Italian slate hones?


Look here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Natural-Slate-Sh...QQcmdZViewItem

The person selling them said that the grit is approximately 2500. That would seem pretty course for a finishing or polishing stone.

Lynn

Well, slate is metmorphosed shale which is basically very fine clay particales. I just don't see it as a honing medium. The garnets in the coticule are much harder than the particles in the slate. Unless the clay was a very special type not the typical stuff. It would have to have a very high aluminum content almost like levigated alumina.

I have been in contact with the seller for some time. I have one of his hones. It is Italian slate that is cut from Italian pool table slate. I have not posted anything because I have not finished testing it yet.

I did hone an Ebay razor on it. It is definitely finer than a 1000 or a 4000 grit. It also works as a substrate... that is I sprinkled some rottenstone on it and started honing. It did have a positive result but i did not have it in a honing cycle. It is also very slow.

But....the jury is out as to just how fine it is and how fast it is. I also don't know if it would be good as a substrate for a powdered abrasive.

I also scrounged up a piece of chinese pool table slate and had it cut for me into a hone. That one I have not used yet but it does not appear as promising from a visual perspective.
There are three major sources of pool table slate. Italian, Brazil, and China. You can get the broken pieces from a pool table company for free. But the cost of having it cut to size is expensive.

Wait a little while longer please,:)

Kees,
I have a couple of slate hones in my collection of hones from around the world. They are somewhat coarse and were, I believe, a local solution that never made it to a wider audience. Slate is a metamorphic stone meaning that it was heated and compressed from the sedimentary stone, shale, which is like hardened mud.

Howard