My new natural stone

Eric
Talk a little about your slurry stones that you use. Have you used found slurry stones with found base stones, etc.?
Alex

Hi Alex, no I haven't found but one stone type that was really usable as a slurry/rub stone of any consequence, and it is just a tiny hair too coarse for optimal razor finishing in my testing. I can shave off them but it's a little harsher than I prefer. 2 of the 3 stone types need to be slurried with a diamond plate, the lightest stone is just soft enough to slurry fairly well with a tomo-type rubbing stone.

Here's another couple small test stones I cut from a new raw stone I found on Wednesday. Another very nice one, same type of stone as the earlier grey one (slate maybe?) but with a little more of a blue tinge. These are consecutive slices from the same stone, just one dry and one wet. And a couple little rubbing stones. When these are freshly lapped flat with a diamond plate the rub stones will raise a nice slurry. After a good bit of use it gets tougher and tougher to raise a slurry with the rub stone, but since I use them mainly with slurry they get lapped to flatten them at every use anyway. The stones finish slightly different with a diamond plate slurry vs. the slurry raised by the rubbing stones, just like the Jnats I've used. (Finish is more mirrored using the tomo-style). They put on a very fine finish with straight water once the stone "settles" into its natural texture.

Another outstanding shave - this time from the stone above that is wet. (It's about 4" long x 1.5"ish in the middle). Decided to start anew on the razor I honed with the earlier grey stone since I'm pretty sure I rolled the edge when I slipped while stropping as described in my last shave report. Went 2k Shapton Pro to the blue-grey stone (stone prep was lapping both hone and rubber flat with well worn Atoma 400) with slurry raised by one of the rubbing stones. Didn't count passes, but probably 10 - 15 minutes in total maximum. Slurry darkened within the first 10 laps, these stones are quick workers on slurry. I refreshed the slurry once with the same rubbing stone used to raise the initial slurry, then honed until it started to dry a bit as I lost slurry over the edge of the stone and then diluted a few times with straight water to keep it wet until I only had just a hint of slurry left. 20 laps on denim then 100 on clean hanging leather. BBS all the way ATG, very close shave, very comfortable, and barely a hint of alum block sting in only a couple places. (Just got my first alum block - never used one before). Edge pics - the first is natural light, the rest are varied raking lighting - to give some sense of scale, that bevel measures about .015" from top to bottom:

Here's my new favorite stone of the whole bunch so far. Same as the little bluish black "bout" style ones I posted earlier, but a little easier to work with. Just an awesome little stone. It's a good bit softer than the grey stone from earlier in this thread. Gives silent HHT on slurry and a real nice shave. Can be slurried with a rubbing stone of the same stone after the main stone is freshly lapped flat or with a fine diamond plate, pretty much the same result either way - slightly better finish on the rubbing stone slurry. It cuts really fast at first on slurry then mellows out to a very nice finish.

that's a sweet looking stone. Looks like a black coti

It's even better in person. There's a bit of depth to the coloration kind of like wood figure when wet.

eKretz said:

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That is a gorgeous stone, seriously. Congrats on the find. Hone or not - I love stones that look like that.
Even better that it's a performer too.... sweet sweet score.

Eric
Looks like it just fell off the roof, still wet from that last storm, LOOK OUT.

Alex

Yeah that one is a pretty neat looking stone. Even better in person, the dark blue doesn't come through that well in the pic. Lol, if it fell off the roof in its original form you had BETTER look out, I cut it from a stone that weighed almost 15 pounds! It looks deceptively large in the photo, it's actually only about 2" x 6". Here are a few more trial stones. I got one from a fellow rockhound (2nd from left) and the other three are my finds. Brown one is interesting, might make a finisher - slurry looks like chocolate milk! Yum.

Oh, look at this pretty girl:



I'm making a box for this one.

Here's another kind of nice one I've been playing with. Liked the results from the small sample so cut and lapped a bigger piece. The little one has a white inclusion stripe, Zebra stone. I haven't got a chance to try it on a shave test on a razor yet but it looks very promising from quick test piece work. This one is absolutely the smoothest stone I've ever felt on slurry.

Another interesting one. This is a slate, and in preliminary testing so far looks like it will give my Celebrated Water Hone a run for its money.

Wow, outstanding shave off of that last grey slate. Definitely right up there with the Celebrated Water Hone. This one slurries dark grey though, so it's hard to tell when swarf has built up - I just did 2k Shapton Pro, 8k SP, then on the slate, 50 laps medium slurry, dilute then 30 more, dilute then 30 more and then 20 on straight water. Then standard 10 denim laps and 50 hanging leather. Excellent shave with no irritation ATG. This one is definitely worth trading for if anyone wants one - this stone readily slurries with a like rubbing stone just like a Thuri. The raw slate pieces are about 11" x 13", pretty nice stuff. I need to shave with an edge from the black slate next, that one looks even finer. Hopefully that will equate to a great shave and not a harsh one.

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Here are some quick comparison shots of scratch patterns left by the various stones, to include my blue/black stone, the black slate, the grey slate, and a Celebrated Water Hone Thuri. All on the same razor and all taken through 1k, 2k, 8k JIS then given 150 laps on each respective stone to make sure they showed only their own scratches. Note that the edge is in sorry shape, this was just a quick scratch comparison so the bevel was never fully set - the razor is VERY beat.

How much material is available to you?

I have enough of the new grey slate to make probably 6 - 8 stones, black only about 3 or 4, blue I only have 3 about 2" x 6" and a couple littler ones. Doubtful I will be able to find more of the blue they seem to be extremely rare, might be able to find some more grey or black. My favorite slates so far are the blue and grey. The original brownish stone I think gets to a sharper ultimate edge though... these are just a little easier to get a nice edge with, not so super hard.

Here are some pics from the first variants Eric has found... Both are in Size 6x2inch....

I will follow with some details on the honing results later, actually its Christmas so the time is limited ;-)

beige/brown/milkcoffe colore stone, seems to be a bit finer stone then white/yellowish one. Also slurry creating on the beige/brown one is very hard...

Awesome stones. Makes me want to go rock hunting if that's what you call it. I wonder what's actually doing the cutting? Quartz crystal maybe?

Have any of you identified what kind of stones they are?

Most natural stones that will cut hardened steel contain silica, that's what does the abrasion. I think the first stone is a form of quartzite, the more recent ones look to be slate.