Thread: Hard Arkansas

Originally Posted by BeeManFOREVER

Pleqse explain burnisihing an arkansas. Are you embedding metal particles to clog the pores so it wont cut as fast?

You're dulling the particles on the stone surface since the particles are not that hard and since the matrix that holds them doesn't generally release them. It needs to be done with something heavy and with some force (thus the cleaver suggested by euclid), as a woodworker I just subject a stone to some woodworking use for a while - something simple like polishing the backs of tools so that the stone remains flat. You can use knives or tools, whatever it takes to wear the surface of the stone quickly and dull its cutting action a little bit.

As a piggish buyer of new stones, I do think some generalities can be drawn of new stones from new makers. It's a whole lot harder to look at a stone of vintage and tell much without using it. Here's what I've seen:
* the norton stones that I've gotten recently have not been too impressive. They are not as nice, to me, as the naturalwhetstone dark gray trans, the black from dans or the trans from dans, nor the black from halls (though I've never gotten a halls stone that's flat new).

The dans stones are the safe option for a new user, but they're also expensive. The seconds make good razor stones and dan's lapping process is the finest of the current makers, so the combination of the stone quality and the lapping process is ideal, or close to it.

Naturalwhetstone's black trans also comes flat (like the dans), but the surface is a bit more coarse and has more loose particles on it and takes longer to break in. When broken in, it's a very good fine and dense stone.

I lap some soft stones and not others to do an ark progression. I keep a cheap soft agitated, and agitate it with a diamond hone - it's a faster stone than a 1k waterstone. I use a washita as the next step and don't generally agitate it, never going further than rubbing two of them together. Final stone is a never touched (only clean the surface with light oil) true hard stone (black, trans, etc), which is why the washita is not kept too excited - a properly settled in black or trans will cut very slowly and make a very nice edge.

I don't use waterstuff on my oilstones because you never know when they'll end up in the shop. I use either light food grade mineral oil or WD 40, depending on how much cut I want. Thicker oil suspends the razor further from the stone and makes it easier to do the finest work, and sometimes I just use oil from start to finish. WD 40 is a bit more handy in the shop when you want little separation of the steel from the stone.

Originally Posted by DaveW

As a piggish buyer of new stones, I do think some generalities can be drawn of new stones from new makers. It's a whole lot harder to look at a stone of vintage and tell much without using it. Here's what I've seen:
* the norton stones that I've gotten recently have not been too impressive. They are not as nice, to me, as the naturalwhetstone dark gray trans, the black from dans or the trans from dans, nor the black from halls (though I've never gotten a halls stone that's flat new).

The dans stones are the safe option for a new user, but they're also expensive. The seconds make good razor stones and dan's lapping process is the finest of the current makers, so the combination of the stone quality and the lapping process is ideal, or close to it.

Naturalwhetstone's black trans also comes flat (like the dans), but the surface is a bit more coarse and has more loose particles on it and takes longer to break in. When broken in, it's a very good fine and dense stone.

I lap some soft stones and not others to do an ark progression. I keep a cheap soft agitated, and agitate it with a diamond hone - it's a faster stone than a 1k waterstone. I use a washita as the next step and don't generally agitate it, never going further than rubbing two of them together. Final stone is a never touched (only clean the surface with light oil) true hard stone (black, trans, etc), which is why the washita is not kept too excited - a properly settled in black or trans will cut very slowly and make a very nice edge.

I don't use waterstuff on my oilstones because you never know when they'll end up in the shop. I use either light food grade mineral oil or WD 40, depending on how much cut I want. Thicker oil suspends the razor further from the stone and makes it easier to do the finest work, and sometimes I just use oil from start to finish. WD 40 is a bit more handy in the shop when you want little separation of the steel from the stone.

Very interesting. I have purchased all my arks from Natural Whetstones; black trans, black, and a soft white. Even though I currently use a Norton combination 4k/8k synthetic and a King 1k, my intent was to go all natural ark progression after bevel setting with a King 1k. I currently polish up using my black trans as that is the only one that I have finished lapping and sanded up with finer grits up to 1200 wet/dry and finished with a chisel to burnish. The others are a work in progress.

I am curious though to what you mean by "agitate" in reference to your stones? Also, what do you think of my using my current arks for doing a razor progression? I am curious in how you do it? I understand that there are many different types of hones and styles, Jnats, thuringians, cotis etc. but I wanted to use only locally acquired naturals (Arkansas is local right LOL).

Do you use a soft ark for bevel setting?


Mike

Originally Posted by mglindo

Very interesting. I have purchased all my arks from Natural Whetstones; black trans, black, and a soft white. Even though I currently use a Norton combination 4k/8k synthetic and a King 1k, my intent was to go all natural ark progression after bevel setting with a King 1k. I currently polish up using my black trans as that is the only one that I have finished lapping and sanded up with finer grits up to 1200 wet/dry and finished with a chisel to burnish. The others are a work in progress.

I am curious though to what you mean by "agitate" in reference to your stones? Also, what do you think of using my current arks for doing a razor progression? I am curious in how you do it? I understand that there are many different types of hones and styles, Jnats, thuringians, cotis etc. but I wanted to use only locally acquired naturals (Arkansas is local right LOL).

Do you use a soft ark for bevel setting?


Mike

Like a lot of us, I've had a lot of stones. I have a fascination for tools with arkansas stones and natural japanese stones, loose diamonds, synthetics, whatever. I only ever set the bevel on a razor one time for each, and then after that they are kept up on a touch up stone and with leather and linen, so setting bevels isn't something I do 3 times a day.

BUT, in an arkansas progression, I use one of the cheap soft arkansas stones that are multicolored (NOT DAN's...dans has great hard stones, but their soft stones are not aggressive enough). Think the smiths branded soft stones that are about $15 or $20. I agitate their grit loose with a diamond hone to keep them cutting fast. By agitate, I mean break it loose from the matrix of novaculite, as the particles in arks are large and destructive. Thus, no loose particle stones after that - when you rub two washitas together, they will make just a bit of fine cutting ability, but not the big aggressive pool of hard and sharp particles that a freshly agitated soft makes.

Natural whetstone also makes a nice soft - it's aggressive and coarse. They need to be agitated and particles broken loose and fresh particles exposed on what's left for them to remain fast, like all of them. For someone in a hurry, this might mean doing the agitating once every set bevel or two, but the bevel sit will come very fast, and you can do some spinewear damage like this if you're not careful.

What I like about arks is that they don't cut as deeply as stones that cut narrower and more deeply (like the aluminum oxide synthetics) and they seem to like a three stone rotation for me just fine. I haven't found too many razors that take damage on ark stones, either - just one sheffield razor that took damage on everything I put it on.

I wouldn't know how to agitate a coarse soft with anything other than a coarse diamond hone. I think historically they were lapped on loose grit, or on the side of a wet sandstone wheel, but I don't want foreign particles on my stone and prefer the diamond hone instead.

I think of the stones you mentioned, you could stand to have a mid stone between the black and soft white, but you have a lot of options with arks since you get to pretty much set the range of their cutting aggressiveness, and could scuff the black and soft white together a little bit to keep the black active, and do nothing other than keep the black trans clean.

Thank you DaveW for your reply as it cleared up a lot of questions that I have had since I acquired my arks. It was, now that I have them, how do I use them in a normal honing progression? I wanted to go au natural with local stones in my honing, therefore my arks. The only problems were that the arks are so hard that there incurred the length of time it takes lapping the arks flat and finishing them up. Silicon carbide grits helped speed up the process though. A tip I got off someone else on the forum. My thanks to them, by the way! Again, many thanks.

Mike

For all you guys who bought from Dan's:

I ordered this weekend - got a thanks for your order email - but still haven't got the "your order has shipped" email.

I am so used to businesses doing that and providing a shipping #, I have to admit I am a little taken aback. Not that I am worried - just excited to be getting new toys and wondering when they'll be here I guess.

Does he send out shipping numbers?? Or is it old school, ehere one day your stones just show up at your door lol??

Thanks gents.

Originally Posted by earcutter

For all you guys who bought from Dan's:

I ordered this weekend - got a thanks for your order email - but still haven't got the "your order has shipped" email.

I am so used to businesses doing that and providing a shipping #, I have to admit I am a little taken aback. Not that I am worried - just excited to be getting new toys and wondering when they'll be here I guess.

Does he send out shipping numbers?? Or is it old school, ehere one day your stones just show up at your door lol??

Thanks gents.

I wouldn't worry about that too much. I ordered from Natural Whetstones, got my notice from the shipper stating that they had generated a shipping order, then I waited about a week before they shipped it. What happens is that usually they don't have a lot of stones laying around. When orders come in, they then have to find and cut the stones. Dan's probably do the same thing. Patience Grasshopper! LOL.


Mike

They are old skool home slice. You can call them though. That's what I did and they were able to give me more info

Originally Posted by cosperryan

They are old skool home slice. You can call them though. That's what I did and they were able to give me more info

This. If you order a few stones from Dans and one of them is a day or two away from being ready, then they will hold your whole order. Best way to figure out where the order is is to call them. They don't otherwise have an order processing system that keeps you up to date on your order status.

Originally Posted by DaveW

This. If you order a few stones from Dans and one of them is a day or two away from being ready, then they will hold your whole order. Best way to figure out where the order is is to call them. They don't otherwise have an order processing system that keeps you up to date on your order status.

Same experience with me. I ordered two "primitive" arks from them, a trans and a black, and it took nearly a month for them to source, cut and lap them. Never got any updates or notices, but the work was being done.