After reading the thread The Turkish oilstone matter I had to try one for myself.
I ordered directly from the quarry in Crete. When ordering you cannot choose the size, only the weight, which is kind of strange.
So I got this quite huge stone 202 mm x 102 mm, thickness 32-36 mm.
This stone is freakin' hard! It is composed of novaculites, similar in structure to Arkansas stones, probably more familiar to most of you. It still absorbs a little water though (picture above is taken 15 seconds after splashing the stone with water) but it will not auto-slurry. You can create some slurry with an Atoma plate but I suppose it will do no good to the longevity of your Atoma.
I found this stone not so useful for kitchen knives, at least not for my use. Maybe if you want to finish long blades such as yanagiba the extra width of this stone would be handy, but I don't have such long blades.
I also considered to cut the stone in two, it would make two pieces of about 20 cm x 5 cm (a bit narrow for knives but good for razors) and use one with water and one with oil to compare. But then again, I'm not a straight razor guy.
I only used water on this stone. Weight is about 1850 grams (take this with a grain of salt as I don't have a precision scale). Selling for what I bought it for: € 58 but I'll include free shipping in EU (for other countries please ask).
I ordered directly from the quarry in Crete. When ordering you cannot choose the size, only the weight, which is kind of strange.
So I got this quite huge stone 202 mm x 102 mm, thickness 32-36 mm.
This stone is freakin' hard! It is composed of novaculites, similar in structure to Arkansas stones, probably more familiar to most of you. It still absorbs a little water though (picture above is taken 15 seconds after splashing the stone with water) but it will not auto-slurry. You can create some slurry with an Atoma plate but I suppose it will do no good to the longevity of your Atoma.
I found this stone not so useful for kitchen knives, at least not for my use. Maybe if you want to finish long blades such as yanagiba the extra width of this stone would be handy, but I don't have such long blades.
I also considered to cut the stone in two, it would make two pieces of about 20 cm x 5 cm (a bit narrow for knives but good for razors) and use one with water and one with oil to compare. But then again, I'm not a straight razor guy.
I only used water on this stone. Weight is about 1850 grams (take this with a grain of salt as I don't have a precision scale). Selling for what I bought it for: € 58 but I'll include free shipping in EU (for other countries please ask).
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. This is a massive chunk of what for my money is just about the knife sharpening stone out there. Signore Pliny knew what he was about!
