squeezyjohn
Well-Known Member
In the other topic about my visit to Ardennes I mention how delighted I was to be in the area that the coticule comes from.
While I was there I visited a mine dedicated to the extraction of blue stone for building at Recht. While on the tour of the mine I noticed the yellow bands of Coticule going through the underground passages and inspected them further - to my joy there was a loose bit of coticule in one of the veins and I pulled it out and I have attached a picture with this post.
The size is probably too small to make it in to a hone, more like a slurry stone, and there is much more BBW than coticule present, but I am intrigued that there is extractable coticule available a good 30 km from the Ardennes quarry, maybe different layers. One of the workers at the visitor centre at Recht told me that there were people in the village who extracted and sold Coticule themselves and that Ardennes were not the only people selling coticule if you knew who to speak to. It is with great regret that family commitments prevented me from pursuing this further.
I know it's a bit geeky - and all that is important is that one can hone the razor or knife well. But I can't help but be intrigued by the possibility of these other layers lying there in the ground un-used while we discuss the 5 or 6 veins available from Ardennes. I also know how hard the extraction is given that the Ardennes worker who spoke to me told me that they get 1kg of saleable rock from 1 tonne of extracted rock!
Cheers
Squeezy
[img=800]1[/img]
While I was there I visited a mine dedicated to the extraction of blue stone for building at Recht. While on the tour of the mine I noticed the yellow bands of Coticule going through the underground passages and inspected them further - to my joy there was a loose bit of coticule in one of the veins and I pulled it out and I have attached a picture with this post.
The size is probably too small to make it in to a hone, more like a slurry stone, and there is much more BBW than coticule present, but I am intrigued that there is extractable coticule available a good 30 km from the Ardennes quarry, maybe different layers. One of the workers at the visitor centre at Recht told me that there were people in the village who extracted and sold Coticule themselves and that Ardennes were not the only people selling coticule if you knew who to speak to. It is with great regret that family commitments prevented me from pursuing this further.
I know it's a bit geeky - and all that is important is that one can hone the razor or knife well. But I can't help but be intrigued by the possibility of these other layers lying there in the ground un-used while we discuss the 5 or 6 veins available from Ardennes. I also know how hard the extraction is given that the Ardennes worker who spoke to me told me that they get 1kg of saleable rock from 1 tonne of extracted rock!
Cheers
Squeezy
[img=800]1[/img]