Thread: Hard Arkansas

Hello Gentlemen,

I recently bought a 12x3 Hard Ark from Dan's Wetstone too. It's a huge work surface and I can get a seriously keen edge off of it, passes the HHT3 straight off the stone, but it's not as comfortable/smooth as I like. I'm gong to keep working with it and try to find that happy medium between sharp and comfortable. I may have to use it as the 4 stone and just calm the edge a bit with a C12K or Koppa finsher. More to come.

Big Greg

Originally Posted by Biggreg

Hello Gentlemen,

I recently bought a 12x3 Hard Ark from Dan's Wetstone too. It's a huge work surface and I can get a seriously keen edge off of it, passes the HHT3 straight off the stone, but it's not as comfortable/smooth as I like. I'm gong to keep working with it and try to find that happy medium between sharp and comfortable. I may have to use it as the 4 stone and just calm the edge a bit with a C12K or Koppa finsher. More to come.

Big Greg

Got a pic? For no other reason than to see another pic posted in the thread, we like pics

Originally Posted by Biggreg

Hello Gentlemen,

I recently bought a 12x3 Hard Ark from Dan's Wetstone too. It's a huge work surface and I can get a seriously keen edge off of it, passes the HHT3 straight off the stone, but it's not as comfortable/smooth as I like. I'm gong to keep working with it and try to find that happy medium between sharp and comfortable. I may have to use it as the 4 stone and just calm the edge a bit with a C12K or Koppa finsher. More to come.

Big Greg

Is it a hard ark or a black or translucent ark. If it's a hard then I treat them more like a pre finisher although I have known a few people who finish on the regular hard arks. Smoothness comes with the stone wearing down. And with a 12x3 that might take a while. I recently bought 2 large arks pictured earlier in the thread and they are taking forever to get them where I want

I recently bought a 12x3 Hard Ark from Dan's Wetstone too. It's a huge work surface

Wow!!! 36 Square Inches of Hard Novaculite, and that's just One Side of the stone.

I still think of an 8" x 2" as being a large stone.

12" x 3"?

We're Not Worthy!!! We're Not Worthy!!!

Guys, It's not like that, I just wanted a big stone.
Big Greg

Have you done anything to the stone? Most folks like to dress them up on wet/dry sandpaper up to 2K or so then take a cleaver or chisel to them to shine them up a bit.

Very nice stone.

I've had this stone for about two weeks and I'm not familar with dressing them up? Can you provide me a little information on that process?

Big Greg

What I do is; start out with lower grit ( I use SiC powered) 220 then 400 then go to wet/dry sandpaper and work my way up to 2000 grit. After that I take a cleaver or wood chisel and work the stone till I see a nice glaze form.

That will slow down the stone but yet smooth out the finish.

I will try this process when I get back in country in few months, thanks.

v/r
Big Greg

It is basically the same lapping and burnishing process used on any hard stone or barber hone.

lap the stone flat with your preferred method, most use a dmt 325. Wet and dry paper on a counter or piece of glass will substitute.

Continue lapping up the grits as far as possible.

For final burnishing use another hard high grit stone or a large bit of tool steel. Tool steel is not hard enough to do this quickly so I suggest a 1x3 ark to burnish and later raise a imperceptible slurry. Don't expect good results using ark slurry with razors, but great results can be had with other less sensitive edges. I usually use about 200 passes to burnish and ~50 to raise an arkie slurry.

Jonathan