Stone identification

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Simon082

Simon082

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Got this big chunk of earth but no clue what it is. Never seen a hindustan look like this nor have I seen Canada oilstones like it.

Strange stone, feels like sandstone but has a novaculite quality to it, cuts fast on oil but useless with water. Tell you what it's a beautifully patterned stone that my crappy tablet can't do it justice.
 

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Surface pattern, colour &c. very similar to a DB I won recently on ebay. (Don't have it yet cos I'm in Aus rather than the UK atm).

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The layers are pretty unusual looking, but lots says Dalmore to me generally.

(Though I've only had a couple of them before, so I'm no great expert!)
 
cotedupy said:
The layers are pretty unusual looking, but lots says Dalmore to me generally.

(Though I've only had a couple of them before, so I'm no great expert!)
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The colour is totally wrong for a dalmore, and dalmores stratification when they do have them tends be everywhere. This is confusing.

By the way did you know back during ww2 they apparently used dalmore stone powder to paint warships when grey/blue was hard to get, I remember reading this.
 
Is it strata or foliation? The way the patterns are on the surface compared to the sides make it look foliated to me... I'm still saying a weird bit of Scottish rock!

I might have read that somewhere yep... is it in the Gordon Tucker Ayrshire Hones booklet thing, maybe?
 
cotedupy said:
Is it strata or foliation? The way the patterns are on the surface compared to the sides make it look foliated to me... I'm still saying a weird bit of Scottish rock!

I might have read that somewhere yep... is it in the Gordon Tucker Ayrshire Hones booklet thing, maybe?
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Definitely not foliated (is that even a word), I've got foliated rock in my stash that I will take a snap off.
 
This I believe is foliage. Its the famous and rare khaki charnley forest, to small for knives so I use on my pocket knife, cuts real fast.


Edit, could even be manganese but I never seen it outside of the coticule world.
 

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I would guess Scottish/Dalmore family too. I have one that I believe is related. Same kind of layering. Much darker than yours but it was one of the most disgustingly kerosened rocks I have encountered. So it probably wasn't always so brown.

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stringer said:
I would guess Scottish/Dalmore family too. I have one that I believe is related. Same kind of layering. Much darker than yours but it was one of the most disgustingly kerosened rocks I have encountered. So it probably wasn't always so brown.
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Ah interesting, I can see the likeness.
 
Simon082 said:
Definitely not foliated (is that even a word), I've got foliated rock in my stash that I will take a snap off.
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Foliation is the layers you get in stuff like slates and shales, same as 'cleavage'. Usually happens in quite straight lines as it's the result of pressure, and not necessarily in the same direction as the original bedding planes which would basically be like the strata. Dalmores tend not to be foliated (to my eye), though there's no reason they couldn't be I suppose.

I'll dig out that book on the Ayrshire stones, it's available somewhere online...

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Nice Charnley btw! I'd always wondered exactly what shade of 'khaki' these were meant to be. Is it softer than normal ones?
 
Here's the Dalmore I have atm. Visually I'd say your stone is a pretty good match, apart perhaps from those very straight layers at the side.

The colour of them gets affected quite heavily by what they've been used with. Use with oil turns them brown pretty much irreversibly afaics.

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cotedupy said:
Here's the Dalmore I have atm. Visually I'd say your stone is a pretty good match, apart perhaps from those very straight layers at the side.

The colour of them gets affected quite heavily by what they've been used with. Use with oil turns them brown pretty much irreversibly afaics.
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Morning everyone from wet Britain.

Yeah I am leaning into the dalmore family, the pictures posted by members and kindly yourself is to close to say otherwise. They feel same but gotta say its harder then the labeled dalmore and since it's been used with oil it's useless on water unless you slurry or use soapy water.

I always had this image in my mind that foliage would literally look like a fossil within the rock and as dalmores are Silt stone the stratification is caused by tidal action. Learn something new everyday to complicate things even further;).

Here's some of my comparisons, sorry for poor images. you can see the brown in the labeled dalmore, especially on the side shot.
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And here's the khaki charnley next to its brother. It's very soft for a charnley, I am sure you know how hard charnleys can get and I have had loads of charnleys, this would be the softest of all I have had, buttery smooth. Sea Green one is hard and a polisher after the first.
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Sorry double post.

Just skimmed through the pdf and took notice on the bit on mikado stones, could it be a mixed stone going through the mine?.

Gonna have a good read of that later, thanks.
 
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Oh nice to have a labelled Dalmore that's still actually blue :). So many of the ones you see, including the couple I've had, have gone brown. If you leave them in degreaser for a week then you can see the original grey-blue colour returning to the surface... and then they go brown again. Possibly more oil from inside seeping back up, but I slightly lost patience by that stage!

My one in the pics doesn't cut particularly well on water either - I usually raise slurry. Though I'll have to give a go with soapy / dishwasher liquid water, sounds like it might be a good solution - ta.

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Very interesting comparison of the two CFs - I don't think I've even seen pictures before of that kind of very old and properly 'khaki' version, certainly all the ones I've had have just been varying shades of green. Sounds like it matches how I had them in my mind too, i.e. a softer, faster, coarser version. Which is excellent I imagine; while I like more 'normal' CFs for razors quite a lot, I don't use them on knives tbh, cos of the fine-and-slow thing.

Thank you for the visual reference point... ebay here I come! ;).
 
cotedupy said:
Oh nice to have a labelled Dalmore that's still actually blue :). So many of the ones you see, including the couple I've had, have gone brown. If you leave them in degreaser for a week then you can see the original grey-blue colour returning to the surface... and then they go brown again. Possibly more oil from inside seeping back up, but I slightly lost patience by that stage!

My one in the pics doesn't cut particularly well on water either - I usually raise slurry. Though I'll have to give a go with soapy / dishwasher liquid water, sounds like it might be a good solution - ta.

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Very interesting comparison of the two CFs - I don't think I've even seen pictures before of that kind of very old and properly 'khaki' version, certainly all the ones I've had have just been varying shades of green. Sounds like it matches how I had them in my mind too, i.e. a softer, faster, coarser version. Which is excellent I imagine; while I like more 'normal' CFs for razors quite a lot, I don't use them on knives tbh, cos of the fine-and-slow thing.

Thank you for the visual reference point... ebay here I come! ;).
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Oh man have I had some nasty stones in my time, if they don't clean up or lacking specialty they just get moved on. Sometimes I wonder what they even used sometimes.

I find the soap helps stop the water beading off the stone, you will find they glaze over fast so a naniwa nagura stone is great refresher.

OK got confession to make. I never use these stones on japanese steel, can you imagine honing aogami super on a charnley, dear lord. There great on milder European steel like sabatier, especially on my 1950s nogents. These stones are just a pleasure to use and the edges are not the same coming from synthetics. Got another charnley however that will easily hone my mcusta vg10 folder to mirror with ease.

You be careful with that ebay;).
 
Simon082 said:
OK got confession to make. I never use these stones on japanese steel, can you imagine honing aogami super on a charnley, dear lord. There great on milder European steel like sabatier, especially on my 1950s nogents.
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This is a good point. Almost all of my sharpening is Hitatchi steels, and largely Aogami 2 and Super. I do actually have a couple of old Sabs also from the '50s, I'll give them a spin. It would strike me that a CF would be far too fine for them, I tend to finish them much lower. Though I've given up trying to understand the mysteries and vagaries of how different steels react with different stones, there's all sorts of stuff like this, that turns out surprisingly good!


Simon082 said:
Red striped charnley, quite translucent for a charnley, big old heavy piece this.
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Nice one too, and good knife-sharpening width by the look of it. Pretty much all of the ones I've had have been a bit under 2". Here's my current collection of 'UK Green Stones'.

Idwal, Idwal, Charnley, Charnley, Nantlle, Nantlle, Glanrafon, Gwespyr:

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cotedupy said:
This is a good point. Almost all of my sharpening is Hitatchi steels, and largely Aogami 2 and Super. I do actually have a couple of old Sabs also from the '50s, I'll give them a spin. It would strike me that a CF would be far too fine for them, I tend to finish them much lower. Though I've given up trying to understand the mysteries and vagaries of how different steels react with different stones, there's all sorts of stuff like this, that turns out surprisingly good!
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Yeah charnleys are on top of the spectrum, I've seen grit ratings somewhere like 10k plus but I never get into ratings with naturals, aslong as they fit the progression.

If your coming off from dalmore or 4k synthetic, your probably only polishing the teeth anyway with them being on the slow side unless you do a full progression, then it's hair splitting time but the edge won't hold long with them being soft steel. Now I only have the big charnley for kitchen knives, the 2 small ones for pocket knives and a very long but narrow one thats way to fine except for razors.

cotedupy said:
Nice one too, and good knife-sharpening width by the look of it. Pretty much all of the ones I've had have been a bit under 2". Here's my current collection of 'UK Green Stones'.

Idwal, Idwal, Charnley, Charnley, Nantlle, Nantlle, Glanrafon, Gwespyr:
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Looks like I'm not the only one who likes natural stones:). First one looks realy cool.

Always wanted a idwal, just never seen ones big enough for kitchen knives, would you say there more appropriate finish for knives?.
 
Simon082 said:
Yeah charnleys are on top of the spectrum, I've seen grit ratings somewhere like 10k plus but I never get into ratings with naturals, aslong as they fit the progression.

If your coming off from dalmore or 4k synthetic, your probably only polishing the teeth anyway with them being on the slow side unless you do a full progression, then it's hair splitting time but the edge won't hold long with them being soft steel. Now I only have the big charnley for kitchen knives, the 2 small ones for pocket knives and a very long but narrow one thats way to fine except for razors.



Looks like I'm not the only one who likes natural stones:). First one looks realy cool.

Always wanted a idwal, just never seen ones big enough for kitchen knives, would you say there more appropriate finish for knives?.
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Oh you should definitely grab an Idwal at some point - superb stones! They're pretty similar to Charnleys in the grand scheme of things, but to make some small differentiations...

Idwals probably have a little more variation. The finest Idwals are probably finer than the finest Charnleys, but the Idwal median is coarser than the Charnley median.

Idwals are slightly harder than Charnleys, and usually have higher SGs.

Charnleys are usually a purer and more finely grained novaculite than Idwals.

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Overall though - they're really quite similar, and occupy almost identical ranges. Those differences I've tried to find are from having had quite a few of each, and looking at them under microscopes and measuring SGs n stuff.
 
Something else interesting in all this is... for both Idwals and Charnleys I've found that the finer stones have lower specific gravities.
 
So people don't get confused, it's come to my attention that my khaki charnley is actually a rare Pierre du Sud Ouest.
 
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