# Inigo Jones 'Dragon's Tongue' honing stone



## Cheshirechappie (6 Feb 2014)

AndyT's thread on his vintage Llyn Melynllyn honing stone brought forth a bit of a diversion when the currently available equivalent was mentioned by Graham Haydon. I now offer grovelling apologies to Graham for stealing his thunder - since I too have invested in a Dragon's Tongue ( http://www.inigojones.co.uk/products/Honing-Stone.php ), with the intention of seeing if it could be used as part of an economical but effective sharpening system - and out of sheer curiosity!

These stones are made to order, so delivery isn't instant. Mine took three weeks, which is well inside the 28 days stated on the website. The packaging was superb - lots of bubble wrap. I ordered two - one for proper, and one to 'abuse' to see what would hurt it - the total cost for two stones including postage and packing was about £26, so that's about £13 for one. The size is 8" x 2" x 1/2", with both faces ground flat, but the edges and ends still 'from the saw'.

First impressions are very good. A perusal of the razor forums revealed that they rated the stone at about 8000 grit, and it is definitely a polishing or finishing stone - it needs to be paired with a faster-cutting Norton India or similar for repairing dulled edges, leaving the slate stone to do refining work only.

When first out of the box, the stone has a sort of 'fuzz' or grinding roughness that works off leaving a surface with a fell like polished marble. The razor forums reckoned that a new stone should be 'dressed' with very fine wet-and-dry to take this 'fuzz' off, and in retrospect, it's good advice. The stone definitely gives a better finish to a tool once the 'fuzz' has gone.

The box states that water is recommended as a lubricant, but I used mine with baby oil to see if it would fit in a sharpening system with a Norton India combination stone and as little complexity as possible. So, same lubricant for all honing. It worked fine, the oil becoming stained as the stone cut metal. If AndyT's experience with his Llyn Melynllyn sone is a guide, a thinner lubricant would be better than a thick one, and as the slate is impermeable, something like paraffin could work really well. 

As my current woodworking project involves fenceposts, tanalised timber and rain dribbling down the back of my neck, I havent really had need of ultra-fine edges recently. However, I did restore a rather nice secondhand 1 1/4" FLL b/e chisel that my sister and brother-in-law found in a junk shop and bought for me as a Christmas present. The flat face wasn't too bad, but the edge was badly chipped - so a new primary was formed on a grinder. The flat face was brightened up on the fine side of the India, then worked on the slate to give the edge a good finish. It was slow work, but improved the finish from the India quite markedly - quite a nice polish, in fact. The bevel was quicker work - India then slate again - and the resulting edge cut paper, arm-hair and even endgrain wood very easily. It's as good as a stropped edge, and I felt possibly a tad better.

One slight negative is that I found the stone did take a mark a bit if abused, though the mark seemed to disappear in the oil and I can't find the damage (if indeed there was any) when the oil was cleaned off. So it's a lot harder than waterstones, though maybe not as hard as a translucent Arkansas. Another point is that it needs a box to get the stone surface a couple of inches off the bench - using it without a box means having it close to the bench edge to avoid chisel handles fouling the bench surface when backing off. (That means your toes are at risk if you drop the chisel - don't ask, except to say that I'd forgotten I could dance like that....)

Could the Dragon's Tongue make a useful addition to the Tightwad's Sharpening Setup? First impressions are that as long as you can put up with it's being a slow-cutting stone used only to refine edges when the fine India isn't quite good enough, then yes it could. At less than £15 a throw delivered, you certainly can't lose much!


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## MIGNAL (6 Feb 2014)

I don't have that particular stone but I do have a similar slate stone. I find it cuts faster than my Arkansas but slower than my 8,000G King waterstone. I use the slate with water, which should cut a little quicker than when using Oil. It doesn't mark quite as easily as my Japanese stone. 
If I was buying from scratch I doubt I would bother with the Arkansas or the Japanese stone. As a finishing stone the slate does a perfectly fine job. At the price one can hardly grumble. Just treat it for what it is: a very fine finishing stone.


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## bugbear (6 Feb 2014)

Cutting speed isn't an issue - the finishing stone only has to remove the scratches fromthe previous stone, removal of the wear and any damage is done by the previous stone.
Combined with double bevel sharpening, they work fine.

BugBear


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## G S Haydon (6 Feb 2014)

No groveling needed CC, it was a welcome reminder to actually get mine out of the packaging and give it a try. I fully agree with the "fuzz". I have not dressed mine yet and the edge with fuzz still on the stone was OK but nothing great. Good to know that it's in the region of 8000. I would agree also with marking slate, you don't have to be precious with it but it will mark. I experimented with a broken piece of Brazillian slate worktop a while back and they both feel very similar. The combination of India & Indigo has the potential for a cost effective sharpening solution.


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## Cheshirechappie (8 Feb 2014)

Should anyone want a bit of background information, there's a long (VERY long!) thread on the Straight Razor Place forum - http://straightrazorplace.com/hones/225 ... nyone.html - with their impressions. Bearing in mind that a razor generally needs a better edge than most woodworkers usually do, the lengths they go to may be more than we need, but their overall impression of the 'lapped' or 'dressed' Dragon's Tongue is quite favourable.

Another useful snippet gleaned from the thread is that Inigo Jones will make other sizes of stone to order; if anybody needs 12" x 3" x 1" or whatever, it may well be possible, though obviously at an increased cost and lead-time. I'm not so sure that they'd do slipstone shapes, though. Can't have everything...

Some digging about on Google leads me to believe (but not proven) that the source of stone for these hones is the old Aberllefenni quarry in the Corris valley above Machynlleth. Quarrying ceased in 2002, but the extensive waste tips yield pieces suitable for smaller items such as honing stones and nameplates; the quarry company still operates supplying architectural slate products sourced from Penrhyn and Blaenau Ffestiniog. I gather that hones used to be produced by the thousand at Aberllefenni in it's heyday during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, though the quarry's main output was larger slab products for the building, monumental masonry and billiard table trades. The quarry is possibly the oldest in Wales, records of commercial slate extraction going back to at least the 1500s.

(Edited to correct date of cessation of quarrying at Aberllefenni.)


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## sdjp (10 Feb 2014)

Cheshirechappie":1qjozgeu said:


> I'm not so sure that they'd do slipstone shapes, though. Can't have everything...



I'm not sure you'd want a slipstone shape in slate.

Slate is anisotropic - it's effectively a 'stack of sheets', compared to woods 'bundle of straws'. For use as a hone, the sheets are orientated parallel with the top (active) face of the stone. This is actually a natural orientation, as the sheets produce natural cleavage planes for splitting the slate.

Even if you ground the edge of a slate into a curve, it's not obvious to me that it would function the same (just as there are fundamental differences between edge grain and end grain - stropping on end grain isn't the same as stropping on edge grain).

The most likely problem is that of tearout of sheets, giving an uneven surface, I think. But there's also risks of scratches from the difference in hardness of the sheets. 

There might well be some slate with enough adhesion between the sheets to not suffer from those problems, of course; the above is based on calculation and a single example.


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## Cheshirechappie (10 Feb 2014)

sdjp":2dwj64um said:


> Cheshirechappie":2dwj64um said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not so sure that they'd do slipstone shapes, though. Can't have everything...
> ...



I see what you're saying, and in the case of slates from the well-known quarries such as Penrhyn, Dinorwig, the Nantlle valley and the Blaenau Festiniog area that's almost certainly true. They have well-defined and easily visible cleavage planes, hence their extensive use for roofing slates.

However, the slate from which the Dragon's Tongue is made seems to have no visible cleavage planes at all. This, in times past, influenced what the Aberllefenni quarry produced - almost exclusively slab products, which could be sawn and ground to shape rather than split. The structure of the slate from this vein probably tends more to the Hornfels mentioned by AndyT in the Llyn Melynllyn hone thread, as I suspect did those from Cwm Idwal and the rock from which the Snowdon Greenstone hones where manufactured.

I've no particular intention of trying this, but I suspect that a Dragon's Tongue could be sawn and filed to slipstone shapes, and from what I observe of it's (pretty homogenous) structure, I suspect that they'd work quite acceptably.


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## sdjp (10 Feb 2014)

Cheshirechappie":2n7chq3u said:


> I suspect that a Dragon's Tongue could be sawn and filed to slipstone shapes, and from what I observe of it's (pretty homogenous) structure, I suspect that they'd work quite acceptably.



Interesting ... I might just see if I can grab a hunk of that, and dig out my lapidary gear. 

I've been hurting for a really fine slipstone (and flat hone); and making one's own tools always has appeal. If I ever get (SWMBO to come) round to it, I'll keep you posted.


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## mark w (13 Feb 2014)

Well this thread is a "mine" of information. Ok, I`ll get my coat!


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