Belgian Blue Whetstone - 8" x 2"
Handmade in Belgium. Each stone is formed by hand and unique. Comes in wooden storage box. Size: 8” x 2”.
Known since Roman times, Coticule whetstones have been mined in the Belgian Ardennes since 1625. Ardennes-Coticule, founded in 1998, is carrying on the commercial business that began 1865 and is the last and only remaining supplier of Belgian Blue and Coticule (yellow) whetstones. The stones are mined from a 480 million year old yellow-grey sedimentary rock built up from clay and volcanic ash with garnet crystals. These unique deposits are only found in the Ardennes.
The Belgian Whetstone consists of 30 to 42% garnet crystals bonded together with mica. These garnets are what give the Coticule its exceptional sharpening characteristics. The geometrical shape of these garnets is a dodecahedron. There are twelve surfaces with obtuse angles. The garnets have a diameter of 5 to 15 microns and penetrate 1 to 3 microns into the metal to be sharpened. This ideal geometric shape (obtuse angles polish the metal) and the large numbers of these garnets ensure that the blade is sharpened both very quickly and extremely finely. In just a few minutes, this results in a razor-sharp cut, for any object that is to be sharpened.
The Belgian whetstone is often compared to a 4000-8000 grit whetstone, using the Japanese grit system, but one must bear in mind that it is a natural product, and therefore no stone is 100% identical to another. The grit rating is given purely for information, and tells you little about the specific characteristics of the stone. The advantage compared to other whetstones is that a Belgian whetstone sharpens very finely and very quickly. No other whetstone possesses this combination.
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