Thread: RE: The Potential of Black Arkansas & Translucent as a Razor Finisher

I am no means a Pro at Honing straights,however, I do shave with everything I sharpen. I have 25 different straights and everyone will shave me. When I first started with straights, all I had to sharpen them was my oil stones. I did purchases a set of Nortons as that they were so much quicker to use to sharpen. There is a world of difference between the two type of stones. I find that the oil stones can absorb more pressure while your sharpening and are more forgiving. I believe that it is because they are slow cutters. Now, this is just my opinion, but I love my oils. I find that the blackie, gives a very high gloss Finnish to the blades that I use on them, and in fact I have a few razors that would not sharpen on my nortons took great edges on the blackie. again, I think this is do to the metal being just a little softer. I use both the Norton and the oil stones, but sometime for some situations the oils just do a better job

It is known that different types of steel like different hones. Some hones are not advisable for lesser quality steel as it will just shred the edge.

Originally Posted by adrspach

It is known that different types of steel like different hones. Some hones are not advisable for lesser quality steel as it will just shred the edge.

Very true and I think that this may be why some don't like them and others find them to work great. On my Dovo, my arkie works fine and will improve a coticule edge but on an older solingen razor that is prone to chipping I have found that the arkie doesn't really do anything for it, atleast not in the amount of laps that I consider the edge worth it.

It is known that different types of steel like different hones. Some hones are not advisable for lesser quality steel as it will just shred the edge.

I have found that some knife steels will keep getting sharper as I progress through the stones, and yet other steels (primarily cheap steels) loose their "sharpness" or "teeth" when I go beyond 800-1000 grit. I have seen this both with stones, and with sandpaper.

question for you Arkansas guys,

Today I picked up a NOS black Arkansas, its no where near as dark as my surgical black but more of a grey-black with a hint of translucent going through on the corners. This is an old stone, probably finder then my newer Arkansas stones but I wanted to know exactly what you would call this, is it just a black Arkansas, surgical black or some other sort of Arkansas that I don't know about.

Ill post a pick when I get home (At work at the moment)

Image of the new Arkanses (Slight translucent in the red) and my new cool stone holder that it came with


Damn i hate lapping hard Arkansas stone, Ive hardly made any progress...

why would anyone want to put someone through lapping these things! Bloody Americans hehe

Originally Posted by Brighty83

Image of the new Arkanses (Slight translucent in the red) and my new cool stone holder that it came with


Damn i hate lapping hard Arkansas stone, Ive hardly made any progress...

why would anyone want to put someone through lapping these things! Bloody Americans hehe

Brighty,

Try using SiC (silicon carbide powder) on a glass or marble plate. That should make short work of the lapping. You'll also find that the higher grits (1000 and up) are more effective than the the lower grits, but you go through the sandpaper like wildfire. So you want to get it flat and chamfered with the SiC and them smooth it as best you can with the high grit sandpaper up to about 2k.

As for the color, translucents come in all sorts of colors from the commonly seen to light cream to jet black. It does not seem to be related to either the particle size of the stone or its specific gravity. I've got them in off-white, yellow, gray and jet black and the performance seems more closely related to how smooth the surface is than to the color.

The jet black ones, however, are pretty stunning looking.

Im using 90 gritt SiC on glass but they are still hell to lapp.. not to mention the noise it makes on the glass! There is going to be a good hours work to get the 100% flat

Brighty,
I've never tried the 90grit. Used 200 and 400gr and it worked great. Did two 4x2 trans arkies in about 20 mins each. Of course, both were already flat "in theory", but I did chamfer the edges with no issue. Maybe it's like it is with the sandpaper that finer grit is simply more effective. One person told me it's because more surface area is covered with higher grits, but I frankly don't know. If you have some higher grit, give it a whirl and let us know if it makes a difference.

Anyway you cut it, lapping an arkie is as much fun as a first marriage.

Brighty-

My arkie is as you describe yours. Blackish gray with translucence to it. It is a NOS stone as well. The box says "Hard Black Arkansas" on it. I lapped it using 600 grit sandpaper to flat. It took about an hour and a half maybe two I don't remember. Then I used 1000 and 2000 to get the smooth. Then I took some hard fine slate which I would rate at about 5k to get it somewhat worn down a bit. Don't know if it helped but I think it might have. After that I bought a cheap chisel and just went to town on the stone. The smoother you get the surface the better. I would say that with an arkie once you get it flat and worn in you should never have to lap it again and the more it gets worn in the better the finish it will give.

I hear a lot of people that try using Trans and SB's to finish their razors but they are used to water stones and lapping them before each use and so assume they have to do so for the armies. This is not the case an is to me detrimental to the finish and when they don't get a good shave from it they assume that arkies are not fit for razors never understanding that they never used the stone to its full potential. I would say that for an SB or Trans to be suitable for finishing it should be able to reflect light clearly but not like glass because while that may give a great finish you will never know because it would take your lifetime to do so.

The lapping sucks and I cant say that the time required to do so and finish a razor is worth it as many other finishers are much faster and give just as good and for some a better finish. To me it is (minus the lapping) because I got mine for 11 bucks and I enjoy the time spent finishing a razor on it. I find it relaxing and intriguing at the same time plus its good practice.