Identifying sharpening stone

[ColeyS1]

Years ago I picked this stone up from the boot sale and thought it could be my go to sharpening stone. It was my first ever sharpening stone.

A few of the old guys advised against it cause it was so fine. I ended up with a Norton combination.
All these years later and I think I've found a place for it. My diamond stone is 1200 and a Waterstone I like to use is so soft I quite often take nicks/chunks from it. I'm just wondering what it might be ? The surface has been freshened up with a diamond stone and seems to do a good job of refining the edge. I'd just like to know what it could be !
Cheers
Coley

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[ED65]

Well it's a natural stone, that's all I got :-D

If you don't get any sort of firm ID it doesn't really matter. I have a similar looking stone that I'm similarly clueless about as to type, but I know the important thing and that's how it works. I presume yours wears very slowly too so a great finishing stone which is what you're using it for.

 

[ColeyS1]

Well it's a natural stone, that's all I got :-D

Every little helps ! The stone is really really hard and it's ultra ultra ultra fine- like barely any metal slurry forms at all. On my diamond and waterstone i can see the water discolour with metal, this seems more like rubbing on a piece of glass to be perfectly honest. I sharpened a chisel earlier with the diamond followed by this. The more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to think using this stone didn't improve the edge much at all . I can wet shave with the diamond and dry shave with the waterstone. This cut dry hair from my arm but nowhere near as easily as the waterstone can.


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[adrspach]

My guess is Arkie.

 

[ColeyS1]

My guess is Arkie.

I just Googled arkansas stone and the description sounds very likely. It's certainly very hard and glass like.
Cheers
Coley

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[AndyT]

It looks a bit like mine, which BugBear identified as an Arkansas in this thread oilstone-id-anyone-t55398.html

DW may be able to help, once he's back from Thanksgiving.

 

[bugbear]

The texture looks a little too open to be Arkansas; I'd guess one-of-the-washitas.

Can you try sharpening a "spare" tool using white spirit, to get it really clean, then photograph it
both wet (wiped) with white spirit and dry?

BugBear

 

[ED65]

The stone is really really hard and it's ultra ultra ultra fine- like barely any metal slurry forms at all. On my diamond and waterstone i can see the water discolour with metal, this seems more like rubbing on a piece of glass to be perfectly honest.

The finer finishing stones tend to be like that, removing practically no metal. They're more about polishing and burnishing of the steel at the edge than about material removal.

I sharpened a chisel earlier with the diamond followed by this. The more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to think using this stone didn't improve the edge much at all . I can wet shave with the diamond and dry shave with the waterstone. This cut dry hair from my arm but nowhere near as easily as the waterstone can.

It's likely that it requires a slightly different technique than you adopt on the waterstone, so a change in approach would be called for to get the most from it. It could be though that while it does something it won't be practical for use on woodworking edge tools as it requires too many strokes for a useful effect.

Very slow stones are of little use to most woodworkers, but what constitutes too slow depends on the individual and how much time they're comfortable spending honing. Razor dudes and some knife sharpeners are fine with doing 30, 50 or 100 strokes each side while we tend to be more in a hurry to get back to the task at hand!

 

[bugbear]

The stone is really really hard and it's ultra ultra ultra fine- like barely any metal slurry forms at all. On my diamond and waterstone i can see the water discolour with metal, this seems more like rubbing on a piece of glass to be perfectly honest.

That isn't the effect I see with Arkansas or Washita. It might be badly glazed. The "swarf" on my Arkansas looks more like ink than swarf, but it's there all right.

I would try "sharpening" an old tool using a very thin and volatile lubricant (e.g. white spirit). I find this a nearly risk free way of cleaning a stone whilst checking its performance, and is the second thing I try when I buy a new stone at a car boot sale. (the first is to use water as a lubricant).

BugBear

 

[ED65]

Doesn't look glazed BB and, uh, Coley mentions in the first post that he refreshed the surface with a diamond plate.

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Bugbear I can do the whitespirit thing you suggested when I get in the shop if it helps identify it. I washed it first under the tap after rubbing fairy liquid onto it. I think only oil that was on the surface came off. When I freshened it up with the diamond, the slurry that came off was light grey colour almost like slate dust.

It's a shame there isn't a way to accurately measure it's courseness. It feels similar to rubbing it on a smooth piece of granite worktop, so as suggested it's probably too slow and fine to be any use for woodworking. I won't throw it out, I'll bury it in a drawer and forget about it for a few more years.

Looks like the dmt extra extra fine is back on my shopping list ! Lol




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[adrspach]

There is the way how to measure coarseness. You take a bar or blade surface/edge is pollished to known quality of it's surface (Grit) {also you will need few of them of the same quality/origin} and grind it on the stone you want to measure with the same lengths of stroke, pressure and count the strokes. Then you need a set of graded quality hones such as Norton, Naniwa, King of different grits lapped to the same quality as the unknown hone. You take your spare blades and replicate the proces which you have done on the unknown hone. Last thing is that you take those blade to the microscope and comparescratch pattern of the unknown blade to those which you know grit. This will tell you how fine/coarse is your hone.
I have to say it is quite labour intensive and I am not sure worth it on one off natural hones.
I know that Henk before he died wanted to make this method more acurate by making a machine which could be set up for objective measuring but I think that sadly he run out of time.
It isworth mentioning that there is a difference between scratch pattern left by diamond hone, waterstone (manmade), natural scratch type hone like Arkie, CF and natural rolling type hone like Coticule. All of these without slurry which can be a game changer all together.