Siletz river canyon shale

Testing all of these beach stones made me think that I need to get to the source, as it were. Deciding to take advantage of the sunny weather, Ellie and I took a drive up the canyon. I was looking for sharpening stones (surprise!), Ellie was looking for amphibians. Success was found in one search, the other remains to be seen...Ellie found lots of salamanders. We forgot the camera, of course.

Yep.

Lots of layering, I lapped numerous areas to test.

Very green stone. I need more homogeneous samples.

This layer was interesting, faintly purple and very smooth.

Interesting.... Definitely some polishing going on here.

What are those weird looking things? Bet you thought that I never used artificials, did you. 5000 grit. Hazy mirror finish.

Yep, definitely polishing. The stone makes a bit of slurry, but wanted a nagura so I used the ODC. It feels like my ink/sharpening stone, kind of sticky but you can feel it working. I sharpened on the long axis. All of the scratches that I can see are from the artificials. I will lap these samples to make a larger sharpening surface..... interesting!

I will go back and get more samples. These are too layered. The stones are very attractive but the layers add too much uncertainty, too much opportunity for very coarse scratching. You will have a layer of nice smooth green shale followed by a layer of what looks like sand. It doesn't seem to BE sand but....I passed on some bright green, thin stuff that in retrospect may be perfect. I wanted to try this stone cross grain, so I got thick pieces. The greener stuff is softer, too. That would be just fine.

As often happens, after using the man made stones I question the whole endeavor. For about 5 minutes. That's about how long it takes to erase the deep scratches and clean up the mess. I pretty much only use them outside where I have a hose and the funny colored grit won't hurt anything. They are pretty fast, though. As I may have mentioned, the naturals are splash and go and don't really make much of a mess. It feels a bit like searching for the holy grail, sometimes. For whatever reason, the naturals just FEEL right.


OK, after a sleepless night (well, I'm not THAT obsessed), I lapped a larger surface to make for a more thorough test...... but first, the man made stones, even the 5000 grit left too many scratches. To be as certain as possible about the origin of any scratches that may occur, I polished the edge using 2500 grit wet/dry paper to get a nice mirrored surface. That left pretty impressive marks too, but it's the best that I've got. Really easy though. The stones did all of the heavy lifting. Why not just use paper for the finish? It IS more consistent, gritwise. P2500 is the equivalent of about JIS 2300, so this is a step back in grit, but the paper leaves a very even pattern that appears more polished.

Nice dark slurry ( need to finish lapping the stone, though)! If you zoom in, you'll see the camera lens reflected in the steel.

The stone definitely polished out the P2500 grit scratches. For reference, I made the P2500 scratch pattern 90 degrees to the cutting edge. The stone did leave a few new scratches. They are pretty much the only marks left and you can see them if you zoom in. There must be a few sharp bits in the stone, or MAYBE some diamond grit got shed and imbedded. More on that later. This is looking VERY promising..... Not particularly fast, but finer than the other stones that I've got. 

The edge LOOKS sharp, but if you look very closely, you'll see that the P2500 marks are still present at the very edge. THAT'S why I don't use paper for sharpening tools. I can't get a truly flat bevel using paper. Or a strop. PSA backed abrasive..... maybe, but I haven't used it. Micro bevels and PSA film.... that would be my plan C (plan B would be India/hard Ark/wood strop). This edge would be fine for most tools, but won't cut it for Japanese planes. Not if you want thin shavings. For that you NEED the back flat. If you can't get the bevel flat, you can't get the back flat either.

While I was frantically trying to remove scratches from metal, Ellie made a fish trap and caught some fish.....

Here fishy fishy fishy..

A wonderful day!

Rockin out at the beach!

Still lookin.....

Beach rocks, Ona beach, Beaver Creek, Oregon coast.

5 rocks, good lookers all....

This is familiar by now. DMT XF diamond to start.

30 seconds using a diamond nagura slurry to start yields.... Not much. Some polishing action.

Different stone, same result.

This one seemed to work well. I lapped 2 small areas to test.

Last stone and the most likely looking one..... and the worst performer. The slurry is light in color because the particles are not abrasive enough. There is no metal in the slurry to turn it dark. Just stone particles.

So I went back to the best of the bunch, lapped a larger section and worked for about 2 minutes. What happened?! Almost no action and sloooooow! You can see a bit of slurry developing.

As a control, the GSS hard gray shale. 30 seconds, full even scratch pattern. FAST! I love this stone! Soooo easy.

As usual, most of the stones that I selected are too hard and don't release their particles fast enough. I think that I am subconsciously choosing the stones that I WANT to work.... "If this one works, I'll have a lifetime supply!", that sort of thing. Still, it's not like I am just picking up any old rock. These are songs that look and feel right, but obviously there is still a finer quality, something that still eludes me. I did notice that none of these stones gave me that gritty aluminum foil tingle that I am beginning to associate with good performers, even though they ARE gritty and have small quartz particulates that are visible using a hand loupe lens. Funny/strange.

Still, it's fun to go to the beach and NOT look at the ocean. I never noticed how many people are out there looking for stones. They are the ones that look at you out of the corners of their eyes, thinking that you must be stealing all of "their" agates.

Addendum.......

So one week later, I keep thinking...."But what about that....". So. Grabbed 2 more.

A small remnant of a too fragile stone but....

It worked quite well. T=30 seconds, made it's own slurry and felt like it was working. Looks very scratchy, not sure if it really is, though.

This MAY have been the parent rock, the composition seems similar. Not at all like the other stones that I see at the beach. Elongate crystalline structure... trying to recall geology 210.

This didn't work as well though. It felt slightly sticky, a nagura might have helped. Maybe another day.

Still haulin' (haul part 2)

Chisels!!!!

I need more chisels like I need, well......surely I need SOMETHING more than chisels but I still want EVERY one that I see. I really don't know why. I use about 4-5 every day, and a few others occasionally....the other 482? Almost never. Just kidding about the 482, Renee ):-0. 

Here is what I see.....3 mm mortising chisel. 

VERY nice wrapped steel lamination. This will look very nice after sharpening it with the natural stones. The jigane will really stand out.

 2 mm mortising chisel.

 Can't see the lamination line, so I am curious as to the quality of the smithing. The tool looks fairly well made, with a good shape to the iron....I can't yet tell if this is a factory made item or was made by an independent blacksmith. It still has the factory grind. It's probably never been sharpened.

 Different chisel, a broken 9 mm.

This is a nicely made chisel, a "real" chisel, made by a non-factory blacksmith. The shaft of the chisel is still black, as is the back hollow of the blade. The black coloring is the result of the steel oxidizing as it is plunged into the slack tub (water bucket) after heat treating. On cheaper tools, the blade back hollow is then ground down to ease sharpening and the shaft is ground to create a matching fit to the ferrule. On REALLY cheap tools the chisel is cast steel. I have seen these painted to look like they were forged. Buyer, educate thyself!

A better blacksmith will spend the time to individually hammer the shaft to fit the ferrule and grind the blade back before quenching (why? I don't know yet. Perhaps so that the buyer knows that the temper of the tool hasn't been ruined by hot grinding...). The blade warps from the tensions of cooling sooo quickly, inducing a reverse bend to the blade. Hopefully not too much....

*******EDIT*******

I don't want to correct the (hopefully) occasional mistake, hoping that anyone reading this might understand that this is a progression, but.....

Quenching a laminated tool can cause the steel to expand, resulting in a blade that warps to the iron side. I had this totally backwards. This is important and warrants an edit. Oops!

******END EDIT*****

Too much. This is what happens when someone who doesn't know any better tries to bend the blade back to being straight. You can't do that. This is what happens, sigh..The pictures that Junji took showed this condition very well, so I knew exactly what I was buying. I'll cut the end off, grind it back and it will be good to go. The chisel looses a few years of life, but will still be a fine tool.

Different chisel, a  20mm.

This one is a mystery. Very hefty, dense metal, good thick Japanese white oak handle. The finish is odd, though. Kind of an incomplete patchwork of sanded (not polished) and black. 

This is a REALLY good handle. The end grain shows a heart center. That means that the handle maker took a branch (yes, a stick of wood) of perfectly straight grain and thickness, aged it carefully so that it wouldn't crack and peeled the bark off when he deemed it ready to use. A heart center handle is the strongest because the wood grain is continuous and the force is directly channeled to the cutting edge. Very efficient. 

The back of the chisel blade is a horror, completely sanded. This would be considered shameful, to do this to a well made tool. If you were the guy who made this....well, I would be disgusted!

Here is the cutting edge and the patchiness that I mentioned. This is a great lamination line -AND- the iron used for the body of the chisel has some weird layering to it, a bit like wrought iron. I have some other chisels that show the same effect and they sharpen soooo easy, but take a wonderful sharp edge. This will look REALLY nice after I sharpen and polish. I like the forged/black look, but this will still be nice polished. A bit bright for my tastes, but......

6.5 mm. Good?

Nice balance, fits my hand and the handle is nice, unfinished white oak. The best "user" tools have white oak handles. It's my favorite, though if you don't put a finish on them, they get all gray and dirty. I use shellac, but bare is better. Some people wear gloves so their handles stay clean. Wow! That's commitment! 

White oak is a more expensive option (more expensive than red oak, anyway.), but strong and resilient. The flashy and/or crap tools for export get rosewood and ebony...terrible for tool handles that get hit.

Or is it cheap? Sanded shaft/ferrule, shiny lacquer on the metal parts...

..and a sloppy lamination line, VERY uneven. This was in a 3 chisel lot...I wouldn't buy one this sloppy, normally. On the positive side, it was actually forged by a human being, by hand and probably not in a factory. Maybe he was having a bad day...

Again, a "real" tool. Black-back. Pretty even, nice curved flow where the blade transitions into the shaft. This is one of those tools that you just have to reserve judgement and use for a bit.

Some of my favorite tools are the seemingly junkers. My favorite chisel is a 20 mm that looks like it was soaked in a bucket of piss, then attacked with an angle grinder. The back is completely flat (bad) and deeply rust pitted (worse). Super easy to sharpen, dense "rich" iron and hold an edge crazy long and doesn't fold or chip.

 Last one....37 mm.

Not too much to show. Its heavy. Very nice shape to it. Nice file work (files are cutting tools, like many small blades, and when skillfully used become a decorative tool) and the lamination line is very interesting. A bit uneven. I wonder if it is intentional? The iron looks very "rich" to me. I am looking forward to sharpening it....

So.....2 kg of joy on a rainy day.

Domo Arigato, Junji!