100+ year old sharpening stone...

My girlfriend's father (85 yo) showed us the stone he inherited from his father and has been using to sharpen his knives with all his life. And he has always used motor oil to sharpen with!! :Ooooh: ...as you will be able to see. This is a super old stone. Anyone have any idea what it would have been made of?

My father always called this carborundum stones. Lubricated with mineral oil or any oil that was to hand. Use for sharpening chisels, plane blades etc. Same as silicon carbide stones readily available today.

Not sure, but you got your second set opener last night!

Very likely it is an Arkansas stone. I have a bunch of these that were handed down to me from my grandfather, great uncle and father that are pushing 80-100 years in the family. Most of them were oil stones too - we generally used a gun oil with them. Arkansas stones are novaculite mined in Arkansas, Texas or Oklahoma.

chinacats said:

Not sure, but you got your second set opener last night!

Click to expand...

Yes, that was a great show! Wish I would have been there.

I'm guessing carborundum too, a form of Aluminum oxide and just a little softer than Silicon carbide. I can tell for sure but does that label on the box look it might say Norton?

wow it looks really soft, is it? I know these stones are not but I suspect after 100 years of being all oily like that... Not dished too badly for 100 years of use though!!

Black arkansas which is a pretty fine grit stone is likely. Use to have a bunch and they are used with oil.

Probably a black Arkansas stone. Very well worn -- it takes a very long time to wear them that much.

They work very well with carbon steel, but are problematic with modern alloy steel knives, since they will cut them VERY slowly and require significant pressure. The abrasive (novaculite) isn't as hard as aluminum oxide and does not rub off the stones to expose new sharp grains in use.

We have a couple small ones floating around, but I use synthetic aluminum oxide and diamond plates.

Peter