Local whetstones

[johnnyb]

I have just been reading a new local history book concerning the small mines of the biddulph Valley. Now these were nearly all coal mines working various seams. One of these the gillow heath mine was also also extracting tons of whetstone. This was from about 1950 until 1980 when it shut. The whetstones were found in a similar area to the coal measures. And this is the interesting bit they were shipped up to Ayrshire to the makers of the water of Ayr and the tax o shanter stoned. In the 60s they were extracting 25 tons a week!
Amusingly this type of wheelbarrow mining didn't appeal to miners in the seventies being hard graft!

 

[johnnyb]

https://www.tomonagura.com/Escher-Razor-Hones/tam-o-shanter.html

 

[johnnyb]

https://m.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151932232546861.1073741839.26089676860&type=1

 

[Inspector]

I have a couple of those stones I think. Stashed away in boxes so long ago I don't remember where. Not used yet as I always wondered if they were meant to be used with water or oil and I had Arkansas and Japanese water stones. Care to enlighten this heathen?

Pete

 

[johnnyb]

Try with both water first though. It does say if they were to hard to cut they were steeped in water.

 

[johnnyb]

Just to add a bit more info here. The book says the stone was shipped to Milton in ayrshire. Net info says that the Milton plant made there industrial whetstones for honing copper for the print industry and tanks. So they must have been for that not woodwork as the two well known stones mentioned were from Scottish quarries nearby. The book says white and grey stones were mined.

 

[johnnyb]

It reminds me of the quarry near Charnwood where Charney forest stones were mined. That hadn't been used for 100 years and a few men were productive enough to supply stones for woodworkers up until american stones (washita et al) were available. The biddulph quarry was producing thousands of tons(maybe 10000 tons over a decade) probably way to much for not very popular woodwork hones!