Mysterious stone? Green coticule?

[David]

I put two drops of oil on this BBW for almost 30 minutes. It washed off in about 30 seconds with dawn dish soap with no trace of the oil seeping in. I do agree with @Darth Scandalous that some coticules do seem to be slightly absorbent, but even those can be quickly cleaned with a simple green soak.

 

[Shaun asleep]

The information found was regarding Belgian Blue, not Coticule.

ANY seller of natural Belgian Blue stones IN OUR COUNTRY stipulates not to clean their natural stones with dishsoap because it causes damage to the stone.
What you do with that information is up to you ofcourse.

But all this is another discussion, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[David]

ANY seller of natural Belgian Blue stones IN OUR COUNTRY stipulates not to clean their natural stones with dishsoap because it causes damage to the stone.

Interesting, I've never heard that before. I have some that I've owned for 11-12 years that I've probably washed hundreds of times with dish soap and haven't noticed any damage to the BBW.

 

[Empire straights]

Interesting, I've never heard that before. I have some that I've owned for 11-12 years that I've probably washed hundreds of times with dish soap and haven't noticed any damage to the BBW.

I've used oil on my really old dense ones with no issue(washed with dawn) but, I would not put it on the yellow side of my Les lat again because I did have trouble getting it off that one. Never had trouble on a bbw but most of mine are glassy.

 

[ArtVandelay123]

I've cleaned up BBWs with 100+ years of oil use as well without a single issue, it behaved exactly as the Coticules did, so ime they're also very easy to clean.
I've also used machine oil on my Les Lat and that one cleaned up fine after use with regular hand-soap.
I know back during the coticule.be forum times, many used dish soap on their Coticules and BBWs, for honing and for cleaning.

When we visited Ardennes back in the day they stated the difference between the BBW and Coticule is actually not that big.
These rocks were formed together 480 million years ago. I can't recall what gives the BBW its colour, but these rocks act highly alike for the most part and are composed mostly of the same material, there is a difference, but it is indeed rather small.
Beautiful stones nonetheless. But I found neither the BBW or Coticule porous from experience.

I put two drops of oil on this BBW for almost 30 minutes. It washed off in about 30 seconds with dawn dish soap with no trace of the oil seeping in. I do agree with @Darth Scandalous that some coticules do seem to be slightly absorbent, but even those can be quickly cleaned with a simple green soak. View attachment 1717049

Damn, that's one fine looking BBW!
I have an old mined LPB and Veinette that both have a similar very fine BBW side.

 

[Joaquinsh]

if it is natural maybe el globo from spain?

That "slate" backing is the same as on the synth barber hone coticules from a century ago.
The top is not the same but has crazing that makes me think it's probably a synth.

My suspicion is a synth/reform coti of a different type or era than what we're used to seeing... or maybe it IS one of the synth/reform cotis that got used/treated with something to cause the color change (soaked in oil maybe)... or a similarly styled/copycat barbers synth.

I mean coticule isn't impossible... but that crazing on the top is pretty much ALWAYS a sign the stone is a synth. It's most commonly seen on frictionite stones; but happens on a lot of old barber synths.

I don't know about stones in general, but I doubt that it is a synthetic stone because it has an irregular vein. I think that in the last two images that I uploaded you can see that in one part of the stone the veins are different from the other end. Regarding the possible blue Belgian stone, I flattened it a little and now it can be seen better, but I don't know what stone it is, I uploaded photos where the largest stone is the mysterious one, the smallest and rectangular one is a blue Belgian and the medium square one is the back (slate) part of a modern coticule.

 

[Joaquinsh]

Yep, they were used with oil for a long time, to the point that many English language sources referred to them as "Belgian Oilstones."

I only have a few coticules but I've used oil on them--interestingly one does take on a little oil and it's the hardest, glassiest one. The somewhat softer one does not, or at least not to the extent that a quick rub down doesn't bring it back to normal.

Oh, I see similarity of my stone with that Spanish stone from the video you sent. The color, but also the vein it has.

 

[Joaquinsh]

I put two drops of oil on this BBW for almost 30 minutes. It washed off in about 30 seconds with dawn dish soap with no trace of the oil seeping in. I do agree with @Darth Scandalous that some coticules do seem to be slightly absorbent, but even those can be quickly cleaned with a simple green soak. View attachment 1717047View attachment 1717049

Oh, the back stone of the mysterious stone looks similar to this bbw. I saw it very differently because compared to my little bbw it is. I uploaded other photos in my previous message comparing how my BBW looks, the blackboard of a modern coticule and the mysterious stone

 

[Gamma]

Can't see the pix well, when they're embedded like this I can't take them out of the post and put them in an editor. I really can't tell what I am looking at, the pix aren't sharp enough and the lighting isn't there either.
At a glance, the coloration of the lighter side looks sorta like that of an oil soaked coti I have.
But different monitors, cameras, color spaces, etc... could be anything.

put water on it, if the stone is saturated with oil the water will bead off.
Does it smell like oil?
Lap it - see what shows up.

 

[ArtVandelay123]

What does the slurry look like? That could also be a good indicator.

 

[cotedupy]

Interesting, I've never heard that before. I have some that I've owned for 11-12 years that I've probably washed hundreds of times with dish soap and haven't noticed any damage to the BBW.

Tbf David - you are famously unobservant when it comes to the qualities of Belgian Blue Whetstone.






(Though I do happen to agree with you in this instance).