Here is a quick shot of the stones I mentioned above (active quarry near Oberlin, Ohio). Sorry for the glare problem. Also a shot of two stones found from an old Hindostan quarry (long since closed) near French Lick, Indiana, from the same trip.
Ohio Bluestones - Queer Creek, Berea, Bear Creek, etc.
- Thread starter gbupp
- Start date
@gbupp - I'm quite glad you started this thread. Thank you.
The language of Ohio sandstone in the context of whetstones has been mildly confusing for me and I'm going to share what I have found about the locations of the sources and the related geological references.
Berea formation sandstone runs diagonally (NE-SW) across Ohio and is included in the Waverly geological group.
I'm running out of time already this morning, and five of the documents I tried to upload were too large for sharing. So here are some 'cliff's notes':
"bluestone" is an informal geological term.
Euclid Blue is a tiny named formation and is geologically considered an 'excretion disk'. It is not Berea.
Berea sandstone in the northern part of Ohio was considered special because it was understood to be indurated (hardened) and arkose (containing at least 25% feldspar).
The Deerlick stone definitely belongs in this thread.
The language of Ohio sandstone in the context of whetstones has been mildly confusing for me and I'm going to share what I have found about the locations of the sources and the related geological references.
Berea formation sandstone runs diagonally (NE-SW) across Ohio and is included in the Waverly geological group.
I'm running out of time already this morning, and five of the documents I tried to upload were too large for sharing. So here are some 'cliff's notes':
"bluestone" is an informal geological term.
Euclid Blue is a tiny named formation and is geologically considered an 'excretion disk'. It is not Berea.
Berea sandstone in the northern part of Ohio was considered special because it was understood to be indurated (hardened) and arkose (containing at least 25% feldspar).
The Deerlick stone definitely belongs in this thread.
- Thread starter
- #23
This is a map from Kipton which does a good job of showing distribution as well. The reason I was hesitant to but Deerlick in here is that they seemed to produce a few types of stone, some with similarities to regular Bluestone and others with seemingly far less so. If you notice on this map and some of your maps, where it was in Cuyahoga is where different stone formations meet, it also seems they tend to perform a bit differently, so I was hesitant to make the claim they were - in fact - the same type of stone as other Ohio Bluestone. It is probably close enough though!
Attachments
The very fine-grained one I had was about 2.58 from memory. Big gap.
Here's a comparison between (the natural type of) Bear Creek and a Dalmore Blue.
The SG of this BC is 2.37, Dalmores run from about 2.55 to 2.60.
By their nature sandstone whetstones are usually quite hard mid-grits. And the BC is a hard, mid-grit sandstone. On slurry it cuts reasonably well, though the Dalmore is quicker.
This kind of stone can actually polish quite nicely, Hindos and Dalmores ditto.
The stone is finer-grained than Queer Creek, though it's not as fine as the Dalmore even though the latter is a little faster. The first pic below is BC, the second DB. And there's quite a large difference here tbh; I'd put the BC scratch pattern around 3k and the DB more like 5 or 6k, n.b. this is a relatively fine Dalmore.
I suspect the Bear Creek is probably fairly similar to @gbupp's Berea Stone, maybe a touch coarser grained.
I'll leave a proper review of the Deerlick Sand/Siltstone up to Greg, but I just checked whether the BC could be burnished in the same way to bring it to a razor-finishing level.
Answer: no. It burnishes a little, but nothing like as high as the Deerlick - this Bear Creek is always going to be noticeably coarser stone.
The SG of this BC is 2.37, Dalmores run from about 2.55 to 2.60.
By their nature sandstone whetstones are usually quite hard mid-grits. And the BC is a hard, mid-grit sandstone. On slurry it cuts reasonably well, though the Dalmore is quicker.
This kind of stone can actually polish quite nicely, Hindos and Dalmores ditto.
The stone is finer-grained than Queer Creek, though it's not as fine as the Dalmore even though the latter is a little faster. The first pic below is BC, the second DB. And there's quite a large difference here tbh; I'd put the BC scratch pattern around 3k and the DB more like 5 or 6k, n.b. this is a relatively fine Dalmore.
I suspect the Bear Creek is probably fairly similar to @gbupp's Berea Stone, maybe a touch coarser grained.
I'll leave a proper review of the Deerlick Sand/Siltstone up to Greg, but I just checked whether the BC could be burnished in the same way to bring it to a razor-finishing level.
Answer: no. It burnishes a little, but nothing like as high as the Deerlick - this Bear Creek is always going to be noticeably coarser stone.
- Thread starter
- #26
Thanks for digging into that Bear Creek, I was certainly curious which way they would lean. It does sound a lot like the Berea stock.
Yeah I suspect the stones, including the Deerlick Oilstone, are probably all related but there’s a reasonably large variation in terms of particle size.
It’s also beginning to look like there might be quite a decent correlation between density and grit level, with higher SG stones being finer.
Ergo - Queer Creek are significantly coarser than others, my Bear Creek is probably similar but not quite as fine as your Berea, which in turn is probably a little below David’s Deerlick, and certainly not as fine as the Deerlick I had of yours.
I have this guy shipping to me. MONTANA OIL and WATER STONE . It sure looks like a queer creek type stone to my eyes. Or I just threw away money due to Hone Acquisition Disorder... Normaly would be scared off by the pathetic Emery word but the WATER STONE part was interesting.
- Thread starter
- #29
Looks like it to me but some cleanup will tell you for sure. Very cool! I've grown to really like these stones.
What am I missing here A? What's wrong with 'emery'...?
For quite a long time time before Norton synthesized corundum the US imported a decent amount of emery from Europe. One of the best and longest-known abrasives in the world. Even Pliny was a fan, historically the island of Naxos was (probably still is) the main source of natural emery:
Fun emery fact no.2...
When Norton sent a crack team of three men to the UK in the late '20s to locate the perfect site for their production there, one of them was a Mr. Frank Emery. A particularly excellent bit of nominative determinism I think.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
I have no problem with emory abrasive.
Pathetic might not have been the best word to express my relationship with the word Emery! Maybe "frustrating" in thier commonplace is better. Or "worthlessness" in thier function for me or value. I am just tired of reading it.
They seem to be the ONLY type of local stones I ever find. The ubiquitous nature of them here is astonishing and many times ive cracked open a nice hand made antique box to be greeted by thier ugly texture. I also have a pile of decrepit emery oilstones from online gambles. They seem to not be as resilient as india/crystolon and fairly Pathetic in comparison, specifically the double grit emery oilstone with crumbling edges. I have a hard time separating the word Emery from that stone despite knowledge of the natural form and as a family name. Obviously you have a much more worldly-historical relationship with the word and I retract any offense in that direction and place my insult directly onto the doublegrit oilstone! lol
I do have an idea that the Emery stone company did at one time produce unique good products and were foundational? in the oilstone business. But time has not been kind to them, I've never found one in useable condition even unused ones seem to be crumbling.
This stone with the nice label and MONTANA label piqued my interest as something unique I had never seen before and old. Hopefully it is a natural stone or I'll be even madder at the word!
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In my estimation... most synthetic stones seem worthless when compared to an india of similar grit. The well made India stones of a comparable grit are very hard to beat. Amazing knife stones. I actually probably need to buy a combo India soon since I'm going to start doing sharpening as a side job again.
To be fair, I couldn't see anyone using water on an emery stone, it'd be pointless. Even using saliva(full of tobacco juice) is pretty pointless on all Carborundum stones in all their iterations. I highly doubt any manufacturer of emery stones would recommend a substandard lubricant because they'd wear insanely fast, especially on emery stones. Not to mention your ruin a blades edge if it were under lubricated(made a garden hoe look like a hack saw). I think your instincts are founded on this one. I would have come to the same deduction. Playing detective well is what lands you top shelf stones at *rock* bottom prices.
Edit/ ps: in pretty sure the Corundum Co. Sold all kinds of stuff. Even coticules possibly. I think that's who sold a boxed coticule I come across that I was floored to see the distributor.
Ah right. So are these low quality 'Emery' stones a brand? Or just a type? What are they like? I've had quite a few low quality AlOx/SiC stones, but never one marked or stamped 'emery'.
It'd be interesting to know whether you could still get actual Naxos Emery whetstones that haven't been crushed up and re-formulated. Like Mr. Pliny presumably had...
NB. - Emery is Corundum, a type of Aluminium Oxide, AL2O3. Carborundum, as in The Carborundum Co., is Silicon Carbide, SiC. Though yep - you're right that they sold all sorts of other types of stones too.
I was unaware of that, I though it was a type of SiC. Nice to know. India stones are hard to compete with still, I know you're a fan too.
