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Hello,
Has anyone heard of or seen a black Tam O Shanter????
Or could this be a "Water of Ayr"? It is a very good finisher, so it could be both :hmmm:
I bought it from ebay.uk.
Thank you and best regards from Munich, Bavaria,
Rainer
http://666kb.com/i/ce7foudetwgwm0qj4.jpg
http://666kb.com/i/ce7fp5lls8sc1um34.jpg
On my monitor it looks brown. A WOA is dark gray to black. Black when wet. I've had it in a labeled box with a WOA/Tam combo. Anyway, the true Tam will always have speckles or dots in throughout the stone. This is why it was also known as a snakeskin hone, or something like that. If it has dots it is a Tam.
Thanks, Jimmy.
The colour is dark grey to black, not brown. I'll take a close up tomorrow.
now here are the close ups:
http://666kb.com/i/ce8hc88makf5vvlmt.jpg
http://666kb.com/i/ce8hchfzqnj5a80g5.jpg
by comparison, my white TOS on same scale:
http://666kb.com/i/ce8hee9kilkyrkw1x.jpg
http://666kb.com/i/ce8helphx4i9tqp1h.jpg
It's a TAM. The white ones cut more finely than the darker ones - usually!
Regards,
Neil
I had a WOA combo, as previously stated. It had none of the speckles but was a monolithic black/gray. I had a small Tam labeled as a pocket knife hone I got from Coulee, that was black and had the speckles very like the ones in your picture above. So my guess is it is a Tam but it is hard to tell from photos. I'll send a link to to this thread to the guy who bought my WOA and maybe he will opine.
The first two pics are darker Tams. The third is a WoA. WoA have sporadic, rather large darker dots, often linked by hair-thin dark lines.
Attachment 130882
Attachment 130883
Attachment 130884
Regards,
Neil
thank you very much, Jimmy and Neil.
Now I'm sure that I have a very dark TAM O'SHANTER!
I have another stone, pale grey with those sporadic, rather large darker dots Neil mentioned, but not linked by hair-thin dark lines.
Perhaps this is a WoA?
http://666kb.com/i/ce8msq2qu4od7nqrp.jpg
http://666kb.com/i/ce8mswto5b8xjw0n9.jpg
The dots are not always linked by lines. Sometimes you may get just two or three dots on a single hone. I have never seen a very light WoA, but I suppose there could be one. Usually they are slate-grey going on to very dark, almost black when wet. The following are all WoA hones:
Attachment 130898 Attachment 130899
Attachment 130900 Attachment 130901
Regards,
Neil
That certainly is a lovely stone - thanks for posting the close-up picture. Never seen a WoA like that! I do not think it is a WoA, however.
Is it very hard and glassy? Hard to lap and to raise a slurry on? It looks almost like some sort of LI variant....
Regards,
Neil
Yes, indeed! It could be Novaculite :banghead:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Miller
LLYN IDWAL, beautiful lake in Wales :)
One of the problems with IDing Scotch hones is that there were more than one quarry selling them and calling them by whatever name they thought would get the stone sold. So there are some out there that came labeled but one company called them one thing, and another called them another ....... Anyway, not my stone but here is a WOA that belongs to an inactive member who last posted in '08 ;
Attachment 130910
thanks for the picture Jimmy. Looks like slate, but I think it isn't slate. Seems to be a rare stone, because I got no answer on my "WTB" post :shrug:
Looks like a dark Tam to me. I have a smaller one that is almost that dark. The WoA that I have is a solid dark color with no spots.
Just my 2¢ :)
It is a rare stone. Took me 5 years to find one. I had to give it up to get another rare stone. So it goes ....... on to the next ......Quote:
Originally Posted by Bavaria
And somewhere out there, someone has just passed away; leaving a pile of strange old sharpening stones for their kids to get rid of. They're not too good with the kitchen knives, and too slow with a pocket knife. "Let's just donate them to the local Good Will, or Salvation Army store".
Beautiful stone at the top of the thread.
