Tanslucents Slurried With......

[Kingfish]

I was hoping a few members will dust off some of their Arkansas Translucents would be willing to try some slurries off thier Translucents.

What Works So Far:
Nakayama-Kita Asagi-Maruichi stone and Esher.Both of these stone produced a relatively very quick finish on three different razor edges to the point of me feeling like it was too good to be true. All razors were previosly finished up to 8k level.

i.e each stone slurried ON the Arkie produced edge similiar to slurry dononr stone.
Nakayama slurry on Arkie felt like Nakayama edge etc.




What Did Not Work:
Slurries made with diamond file size hone. Any slurries made from the parent translucent sped up swarf formation, but the edge delivered was sub par.

Not All Translucents Are Equal. I have one translucent fro Hall's that I got for tools. It is a translucent but not a waxy looking one but on the white side. Of course color has nothing to do with it, but the point is that this stone is good for faster bevel work with Norton Prep Stone for slurry on tools, it has not given me the same results as a stone from Dan's that is much finer.

What interests me the most as far as razor applications is the fact that each edge comes off consistantly and at least as good as any I have made off the parent donor stones and quickly. Also and maybe most important in my mind is that I have never seen a stone transform in finish and speed as the translucents worked this way. It could hve to do with harder abrasive anchoring in on the softer silicate translucent. This makes sense both intuitively to me and scientific.The fact that the translucent stone is so physically hard, but will yeild to harder minerals makes a very unique platform to hone on.

Only light slurries were made on top of very smooth finished translucent and hone until dry. It was very quick, and....if anyone else decides to try, you can tell us what you think. A light stropping on leather afterward.
Edge looked incredibly uniform under magnification and took on apparence of donor slurry stone.

[Disburden]

I love slurry experiments! If I had an Arkansas stone to try this out I would be posting a response by tonight.

[hi_bud_gl]

will speed up but edge fines will not change to best.
it is not easy to make slurry because it is oil stone.
You can use with water but you are not using max potential of the stone.
hope this helps.

[JimR]

I imagine the slurry you made with your Escher/Japanese stones was NOT Arkansas slurry, but Escher/Japanese slurry.

As I understand it, Arkansas is made of packed crystals, not fine particles in a binder matrix--so when you use a diamond plate, the particles you release will only be as small as the grit of the plate allows them to be--i.e. not very fine at all.

[Kingfish]

I imagine the slurry you made with your Escher/Japanese stones was NOT Arkansas slurry, but Escher/Japanese slurry.

As I understand it, Arkansas is made of packed crystals, not fine particles in a binder matrix--so when you use a diamond plate, the particles you release will only be as small as the grit of the plate allows them to be--i.e. not very fine at all.

Yes the slurry is definately the other stones and not the arkie. It works better with softer stone donors. i.e. the very hard asagi does not leave much if anything behind.Matter of fact it feels like clash of the titans and I do not want to stress out my best stone surface. The softer Maruichi stone leaves a slurry the same color.

I know you are not a diamond nagura fan Jim, and on the arkie I am with you 100%.

Sham I realize this is not the intended use of an Arkansas stone, but that is what makes it interesting. I get a very smooth edge off translucent but much it takes some time by itself.
With slurry it is much faster and it feels like the edge of donor stone and makes me happy that I can use my Arkansas stonein a similar way as very hard Jnats are used. Try it and see.
What I like best is you can get a very fine edge this way that feels like the slurry stone.

Disburdan, the stone I am using is a "2nd" 8-2-1/2 Dan's Trans that I got for less than 50 dollars of an internet vendor. I am having Dan make me up a full size bench Translucent I like it so much. Arkies can still be had at very reasonable prices relative to other naturals that many here use.

I would love to try it with Naguras too. I have another stone I use for carving tools that I use a Norton Prep stone and it puts the Arkansas on steroids. I need and learned on very hard stones, because these tools rip up soft stones quick. I wish Stefan would try with his nagura selection to compare edge to his slurried Tomae.

[randydance062449]

Your experiment reminds me of some that were done with the Spyderco hones using various slurries. I used a natural nagura and some garnet. In both cases the hone functioned as a substrate to hold the slurry abrasive. Robert Williams did the same with diamond paste/powder. I would suspect that any number of different rocks/hones would function the same way as long as they are relatively hard. Essentially what is being done is to use various materials as a substrate to hold an abrasive. Historically leather, linen/canvas/felt, wood and now stone have been used. The manmade hones and materials are next.

We do have a lot of tools that we can use!

[matt321]

I was hoping a few members will dust off some of their Arkansas Translucents would be willing to try some slurries off thier Translucents.

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't tried this yet, but I've been doing similar things with a Spyderco UF. I have a translucent as well, and I may try that too based on your suggestions. So far I've used Naniwa synthetic nagura slurry, Naniwa 10k and 12k slurry, and 0.5 micron diamond spray on the UF.

Here is a WSW post desribing the UF method:
An inexpensive "superhone"

RW also recommends .3 micron Alumina abrasive slurry.

I like the fact that when the slurry is applied to the hard stone you get the benefits of cutting speed without the constant lapping needs of softer stones. It seemed to me that the slurries from the Naniwas cut faster and coarser than the parent hones. My sharpest results have been with the 0.5 diamond spray.

Keith Degras from Hand American said this in a post a couple years ago: "When it comes to maintenance stones I only use one, a surgical black Arkansas stone that I spritz with 1 micron boron carbide & water." I myself haven't tried that yet.

[Kingfish]

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't tried this yet, but I've been doing similar things with a Spyderco UF. I have a translucent as well, and I may try that too based on your suggestions. So far I've used Naniwa synthetic nagura slurry, Naniwa 10k and 12k slurry, and 0.5 micron diamond spray on the UF.

Here is a WSW post desribing the UF method:
An inexpensive "superhone"

RW also recommends .3 micron Alumina abrasive slurry.

I like the fact that when the slurry is applied to the hard stone you get the benefits of cutting speed without the constant lapping needs of softer stones. It seemed to me that the slurries from the Naniwas cut faster and coarser than the parent hones. My sharpest results have been with the 0.5 diamond spray.

Keith Degras from Hand American said this in a post a couple years ago: "When it comes to maintenance stones I only use one, a surgical black Arkansas stone that I spritz with 1 micron boron carbide & water." I myself haven't tried that yet.

Thanks for that post. Yes, the hard stones were important for me for my carving tools and was very suprised how functional and economical my Arkies could be for that purpose.
My next thought was to try with razors but on a finer stone. I don't think the Arkie provides much more than a very flat, non distorting substrate to hone on top of. Now the spydies might be an even better candidate for my tools as they might even make the whole process more aggresive.
I do notice a major difference on how a finer translucent makes a huge difference in the finish on a razor as I have different arkies. Slightly rougher ones cut faster with slurry but don't finish as nice for razors.
My best razor came off the finest trans with the slurry going almost dry at the end, I doubt the razor came into contact with the slow cutting arkie, it was ride on the slurry film that was broken down very fine.

[JimR]

Sounds like you need a Kanaban.

[Kingfish]

Nothing new under the sun, eh Jim? This is likely the reason why the Arkie made of pure silicate is effective. The pure silicate is "softer" on hardness scales than other abrasive material including Jnat.
Japanese steel is very close to hardness of arkie stone, but with slurries from Jnat they are transformed into powerful cutters. I have an "Arkie Kanaban." that is rust proof and pretty.