Thread: Muller Thuringian

Item for review:
One of the "NOS" Thuringians distributed through (presumably an employee of) the Muller (Mueller) company. These have been reported as being give and take on whether or not they are comparable to real NOS thuringians, some might be others night not be. The deal with this stone is that I bought it on ebay from a seller that claimed it was cut from a larger chunk that was a vintage piece that had been stashed away or forgotten about, making it essentially NOS. But whether that is true or not I can't say.

Test procedure:
1. Lap stone under warm running water on a DMT Diasharp 325 hone.
2. Smooth off the top surface with a DMT Diasharp 1200 hone.
3. Repeat progression for included slurry stone.
4. Secure the stone in a DMT stone holder.
5. Prep a test razor (Geo. Manby Sheffield 1/4 hollow) honed up to 8,000 grit level.
6. Form a light slurry with the slurry stone.
7. Do 5 laps and check surface scratching under eye loupe.
8. Repeat until uniform scratch pattern forms down the length of the blade.
9. Test shave a (small) portion of forearm (I do this for all my honings, so I have a good a feel for what translates to smooth on the face).
10. Wipe off slurry and repeat steps 7, 8 and 9.
11. Allow to dry and repeat steps 7, 8 and 9.
12. Post review of results.


Results:
I must have gotten one of the better ones because this stone performed above and beyond my expectations.

Slurry: The finish off of the slurry was comparable to my vintage Coticule w/ slurry for the same number of laps, but the Thuringian is larger than my Coticule so it must have cut slower (slightly) since there was more surface covered on the Thuringian for the same number of laps. It was far smoother than the edge left by the Norton 8k.

Water: The finish off of the stone with just water was an improvement over that of the slurry. Under magnification, the previous hazy slurry scratches were replaced by even linear scratches that were visibly finer than that of the 8k and gave a very smooth pass over my arm skin. Comparable in every way to the coticule, maybe a bit finer, but a blind test would prove it hard to distinguish one from the other.

Dry: The finish off of the stone dry is where this rock really shines, literally! The finish, visually, is almost mirror perfect, a level not achievable by my coticule. And, granted, we are dealing with a natural product with inherent variation from one to the next, I find that the difference between this stone and my Coticule ought to be outside of the normal variation amongst Coticules of the same era in production, early 1900's. The feel was also excellent, equal to that of my Chinese 12k (they are really 12k+, no telling how much though) only the Thuringian cuts faster and is more aggressive with a slurry, making it a more versatile stone like the coticule.

First pic is the stone and the wrapper. Second and third pics were taken after some honing on other stones (forgot to take them while testing) so there is a double bevel that was not created with this stone, but the main bevel was redone with the Thuringian for illustration of the level of shine and scratch pattern achieved in testing. 2nd pic is the finish off of the stone with just water, 3rd is from the stone dry.

Conclusion:
This stone is great, 2nd to none in my collection thus far, and being possibly "vintage" makes it a bit more appealing, though the performance speaks for itself. I would be hesitant about recommending them to a user with no other options, as they could possibly receive an inferior specimen, but my experience was 100% positive. I am awaiting a bona fide vintage stone from Kees and will review that stone similarly, as well as how the two compare. Can't wait!

I have the same stone you have and I also have a vintage true escher stone. I find the Mueller to be not as fine as the escher but it still does a very good job. I find the escher to be very close to the coticule. Some razors seem to prefer it to the coticule. I use my mueller alot with razors with alot of uneven wear because it is a narrow hone and it works well in that scenario.

I have since used one of the vintage thuringians that Kees distributes and found the difference between the two to be just about indistinguishable. I am working up a review for that one, just need a large block of time to be thorough.

Also, I may be receiving an Escher from the mailman soon for another data point on the comparison spectrum.

Edit: I forgot to give a numerical rating in the review. I'd give it a 9 or 9.5 because it's performance was outstanding, but nothing is perfect. The price could have been lower, the stone could have cut faster, could have been lapped before shipment, etc. but overall well worth it for me.

I'll be keeping an eye for the little vintage thuringians review ... I purchased one of these from wojtec and also one of the newer MST thuringians , I'm still trying to find where they sit in my progression ...

thanks for nice review

Garry

My vintage thuringian came from Kees, so while vintage stones from the same region ought to fairly close to one another, there is always a bit of variation. Especially if the stones are from different distributors.

Just clarifying that as another data point.

I have most of the pics taken and am repeating some of the steps to be thorough. Check back in the coming days/week.