Jim Mensik Custom Acoustic Telecaster

The thing I appreciate the most about being a luthier is not the actual building of a guitar or stringed instrument, but the relationships I build with my clients who eventually become good friends. Jim Mensik approached me last year about building an electric Telecaster style guitar. He loved it so much that he requested a matching Telecaster acoustic guitar and possibly an electric bass for a Tele-trifecta as he called it. 

The original electric guitar body was made of Padauk with a highly figured maple top. The neck thru was a laminate of 5 pieces; figured maple, Koa and monkey wood or a type of rosewood. 

The acoustic could not have a figured maple top so we selected Bear Claw Sitka Spruce to resemble some figure. The body would be bent and shaped like a Tele using Padauk. Padauk is a very good tone wood. However, the fibers would not bend well for the tight radius required. After failing horribly at bending the sides on two sets of wood for the body I finally contacted Jim and explained the situation. In an attempt to make things right I selected a set of figured Koa wood from my private stash. To our surprise, the Koa took the shape of a tele quite easily. I'm glad we used Koa in the neck of the electric model because we can transition with Koa in this acoustic build.

Continuing the theme of the original guitar, we kept the same inlay pattern of moons and clouds in an art deco design. Perhaps the shapes even resemble planets. The inlay material selected is Mother of Pearl and Abalone. 

The Mystery of the Unknown Sharpening Stone

A couple weeks ago I was checking out eBay for vintage natural whetstones and found an interesting item. The seller stated 'this is an unknown whetstone. It is not a Hindostan, though it feels finer. It feels similar to bisque. There are saw marks all around the edges. It's hard and dense, not crumbly. This stone would be fine for knives, chisels, plane irons, etc.'

Curiosity got the best of me so I placed a bid for $11.99 and forgot about it. Besides, I would probably be outbid. No loss. A week later I received an email stating that I was the winning bidder. 

The game is afoot!

When the stone arrived it looked exactly like the photos and had a faint smell of oil. Did I just purchase another common Arkansas oil stone? I was beginning to feel disappointed. I decided to boil the stone in Dawn dish washing liquid. The stone didn't change color but the faint smell of oil was gone. I could see the original saw marks and the wear on the stone was minimal except for the normal nicks and chips found on a stone that may have sat in the bottom of an old toolbox.

I started flattening the stone on a DMT lapping plate and noticed that the color of the stone began to change as a fresh surface was exposed. Also, the texture did not feel anything like an Arkansas stone. The stone was very soft and felt smooth like fine chalk or clay and I could feel tiny quartz particles releasing as I continued to work it with the diamond plate. I decided to lap all six sides and chamfer the edges. 

I began seeing interesting mineral streaks laced throughout the stone which confirmed this was a natural stone and not man made. Was this an Ardennes Coticule or a Belgian Blue? 

Further research leads me to believe this stone to be a Thuringian!! 

The softer Thuringian water stones were mined in the area of Steinach/Thuringia, Germany during the 1800's by small family businesses and many were sold to Escher Company which was located in Sonneberg.

Thuringian water stones are slate stones or more precisely mud slate. These slates consist of quartz - which is an abrasive material, clay, mica (glimmer) and chlorite. The softer stones were found in the upper-Devonian age deposits. 

The hones came in different colors with yellow green, blue green, light green and dark blue. The color was determined by the amount of chlorite and other trace minerals in the stone. Escher would grade their stones by color and may have related to the speed which they cut. The lighter colored stones seem to cut faster. The more blue stones leave a finer edge and were preferred by barbers as razor hones and seem to be in the area of 12 to 15K in grit. The darker stones should be used with a slurry.

A quick search on eBay for vintage Thuringian hones show they sell between $70 - $400. Not bad for an $11.99 bid. The mystery of the unknown sharpening stone is solved my dear Watson!!

Petrified Palm and Malachite Sharpening Stones

While doing research on natural sharpening stones I stumbled across several woodworking forums that mentioned petrified wood can be used as an alternate sharpening stone and that specifically petrified palm wood was the best. Petrified palm wood is actually called Palmoxyln and is an extinct genus of palm. This sample is from Louisiana and considered very scarce. It's also porous so the swarf flows off the stone freely and the texture is just right for sharpening.       

I found this sample of petrified palm wood on eBay for $14 so I figured I'd give it a try. The slab is a nice size for sharpening plane blades. I cut a scrap piece of rosewood as a base plate to prevent the stone from breaking under pressure. A little bit of 5-minute epoxy, and our stone is ready for action.

I used a natural nagura stone to work up a thick creamy slurry.

The petrified palm tree was very slow to cut, but it did put a nice mirror finish on the back of the blade. This was after about 1000 strokes. This stone contains a lot of white agate which is mycrocrystaline quartz which shows that not all stones of the same type are equal. I believe if this stone contained more petrified wood than agate, it may have cut metal faster. In comparison, the brown edges of this stone did the most work while the white center core (agate) removed the least amount of metal.  As you can see, the dark swarf buildup in the pours shows promise. This stone has potential but would not be my 'go to' stone. My red jasper still sits on top of that list.

Another stone that was mentioned in the woodworking forums as a natural sharpening stone is Malachite. Malachite is a bright green mineral consisting of copper hydroxyl carbonate. Many years ago I acquired a sample of Malachite and it's been sitting in my backyard ever since. Last summer I placed it on the hearth of my outdoor fireplace. After reading the woodworker forum I thought I would give it a try.

This is a beautiful stone and 3 sides have already been cut flat with a diamond saw. There appears to be a good amount of quartz in this particular sample.

After 100 strokes I started to lose the mirror finish from the petrified palm wood and I didn't see much swarf developing. Using the nagura didn't help much either. I am curious how this stone would work as an intermediate stone. I believe the high content of quartz in this sample diminished the sharpening potential of this stone.

I would like to cut another side of this stone that shows more Malachite than quartz and see how that compares.

The petrified palm, malachite, ODC nagura and Japanese nagura resting on my sharpening pond.

More experiments to follow. I'll leave you with some photos of my stones. Thanks for reading.