Thread: Hard Arkansas

Dan's grade their stones different than Natural Whetstone. I would have to feel Dan's black to believe it is any finer than the trans stone I have.

How are you guys lapping your Arks?

I used loose grit 220 and 400 silicon carbide powder on a good size piece of granite. From there I use wet/dry sand paper

Believe me my surgical black is definately quite a bit finer than my transluscent

Where is the translucent from?

I have a black that is finer than most translucents that I have had. I will say though that it is slightly translucent so I guess technically it's a translucent. It's a 452 as well. I lapped it with sandpaper all the way to 1k and then used my 1k diamond too because I ran out of 1k sandpaper. Then I used my dragons tongue with some slurry and lapped it for quite some time then a coti. After that it was very reflective and then I burnished with a cheap chisel and lots of pressure and oil. You can now read from a reflection of a computer screen off of it. It is stupid slow but with great patience comes great rewards. I then soaked it in simple green to get all the oil and swarf from the chisel out. It's like shaving with butter when I use it

Originally Posted by Wid

Where is the translucent from?

Dan's wheststones is where all of my arkansas came from. They mine and mill them.

Originally Posted by Wid

Dan's grade their stones different than Natural Whetstone. I would have to feel Dan's black to believe it is any finer than the trans stone I have.

It depends. If you leave the factory milling on them, then yes it will feel rough. I lapped mine with a ceramic barbers hone and its smooth as glass now

The factory surface.

After lapping on ceramic barbers hone thats pretty course.