Thread: Hard Arkansas

I just touched up the same razor I used the Dan's hard Arkie on. Did 100 laps with Dan's honing solution. The bevel didn't look a whole lot different but the hht showed an improvement. The resulting shave was really nice with no hints of irritation when after shave was applied.

If need be I could live with this stone as my finisher, it's that nice.

Originally Posted by Wid

I just touched up the same razor I used the Dan's hard Arkie on. Did 100 laps with Dan's honing solution. The bevel didn't look a whole lot different but the hht showed an improvement. The resulting shave was really nice with no hints of irritation when after shave was applied.

If need be I could live with this stone as my finisher, it's that nice.

Well now! That's saying something. You have convinced me that I need to buy one.

All said and done though - congratulations. Nothing better than a guy getting a stone that he's pleased with! Nice.

Well, I contacted Halls today .

When they get back to me, I'll finally get myself a Black. I can't wait to run my benchmark blade over it and see how it fairs .

Woot!

Looking forward to your observations.

I'd like to hear how the halls stone turns out. years ago, the halls black 12x3x1 stone could be gotten for $90 including shipping. Oilstones have come back into popularity since then.

I bought one. However, it was very far out of flat, and after lapping a surface about 8x2 in the middle of mine, I sold it as I didn't have the stomach to keep lapping it.

The dans stones I've gotten come very flat, and especially the hard black and trans stones, are very very smooth due to whatever their lapping process is. I haven't gotten any other new arkansas stones from any that are as smooth. If the guy who sells the halls stones (can't remember if his name is Hall) is now making the hard stones flat, it is worth knowing.

There is a large gap between dans hard stones (of which the one I got is 2.5 specific gravity) and the black and translucent (which of mine are closer to 2.7 - which doesn't seem like much but it's substantial). The black stones from dans and the trans stones from dans are as fine as any that i've used, new or vintage. The halls black I had started out fairly coarse (which may have been due to the saw used to cut it) and went to slow pretty quickly (slow is good for a razor).

I wish I would've kept it.

I just tracked down the halls page. It looks like the retailers that used to sell halls have mostly gone to norton. Here's my thoughts, and you might find them useful and might not. I have bought hard stones in the 2.6+ density range from:
* halls (the aforementioned black stone)
* dans (four different stones)
* natural whetstone (the black trans)
* norton (four different stones)
* vintage (two bone colored stones)
* unmarked from ebay (two stones)

I would skip halls and get a stone from dans. What I didn't know when I made the post above is that the halls stones appear to be available now at very high prices compared to what they used to be. They are similar in price to dans stones. I would avoid halls if the price is close and get a black or translucent from dans. The halls trans might be a good stone, I don't know, but I know for sure the dans is.

The black stones that I've gotten from dans (two of them) are just finer than the material that was in my halls stone, and finer than the black stone that I got from norton. That's capped off with their lapping process which leaves a broken in stone (which is ideal) in black and trans stones - or very close to completely broken in.

I also wouldn't buy a soft stone from dans. The conclusion of that is unfortunate, that the place with the best hards doesn't have good soft stones, but that's just the way it is. Whatever dans is mining, the hards are excellent, and Larry Williams, a toolmaker in Eureka Springs AR who toured both the halls and dans operations said the same thing.

Not saying you have to do what I'm saying, or what larry recommends, but suggesting it out of much buying and much experience, along with someone else who makes hand tools with plain oil hardening steel and also uses arkansas stones fanatically. In looking for halls retailers, I found Larry's comments (I know larry, though, already, so it's only by chance that I saw his comments).

I would have bought my black from dans but they didn't take paypal. I switched over to Naturals (Dave). The only drawback I can see is the stone needs a lot of work to get it smooth enough to make it usable for razors. Mine did come very flat, I asked that did and Dave came though for me.

DaveW.......How do you compare Natuals to Dans?

The black stone that I have (the black trans) is the densest stone that I have, and very flat. Whatever NW does to flatten and lap their stone leaves the stone very aggressive, though, so anyone getting one would need to break it in to get it ready for use on razors.

I think mine is more like a translucent stone than a black stone, but I have seen other dark vintage hard stones that look like almost black but have some translucence on the edges.

At any rate, I like the dans stone a little better than NW, but it seems every time I let someone try my NW stone, they lap it even though I ask them not to. It could very well be at least as good as the dans stone (it has the density to be great), but I have so many stones that I haven't gotten around to using it a bunch in the shop to really break it in. I think it's safe to say that it's a decent option, though, and there aren't many 8x2x1 stones for $120 that are translucent (at least not new ones). Norton has moved their pricing close to $200 for those, and a lot of sellers on ebay who are labeling stones from unknown places have done the same.

Short answer, I guess, is the dans is a very safe bet, nearly fully prepared. The NW should be, and I recall vaguely getting a great edge off of it before I loaned it around to a couple of people.

I have no where's near the experience with the differant manufacturers as you but you're assessment seems spot on. The stone I got from dans felt good right out of the box but needed to be flattened a bit more while the stone from Natuals was flat but was real rough out of the box. Once dressed the black took on a real nice finish.

There is however a pretty good price difference too. The extra work needed to fisnish the one from NW was well worth the difference in pric IMO

For the price difference, if price matters, I'd break in the stone, too. Sometimes I overanalyze things and then don't communicate them very well.

In my opinion, the only oilstones that I haven't loved a whole lot have been recent norton trans stones and black stones. Just a personal feel of what I'm used to with those types of stones, and I think norton's most recent offerings (which are now labeled Hard arkansas instead of HTA) are marginal in the world of hard arks.

I'm sure they could be used with good effect, but why do it when there is something better - and the NW stone is better. The break in period with a cheap hardware store chisel or plane blade (Which allows very uniform work) is probably only 20 minutes of working. This is viewed in the other direction on woodworking forums - folks get frustrated when the stone goes from the bite/cut to the slick burnish. But that's because they envision using the stones like a synthetic stone.

Anyway, the NW stone maybe has the best potential of all of my stones, to match what the dans stones are like, and all things considered, $119 for a full sized 8x2 trans these days (which is what it really seems to me to be) is a good deal. A stone like that has an indefinite lifetime that's really only limited by an owners ability to avoid dropping it.