Thread: Hard Arkansas

Originally Posted by Wid

Sorry, Natural Whetstone.

Natural Whetstone Co Sharpening Products 3

Thanks man. Never heard of these guys before. I'll scope em out.

Nice guy to deal with and the prices are real good.

I personally never dealt with NW but they are a bit cheaper except for... you know... if you check the specials at Dan's. Can we say 10 dollar Trans Black? Its only a 4x2 and has a toxic line on one side (the side I don't use) and one side is thicker than the other but I hold it in my hand and correct for that issue. Like you said earlier, Its a stone that I could live with as my only finisher. In fact only finish with it. I have other finishers but never use them. Actually I am starting an experiment to see the difference and see what techniques can make my other finishers feel like my trans black.

I also got a 12x2-1/2 soft and it actually is a great stone. I got it for 30 bucks. It has a divot in one side....so I don't use that side. I mean really unless its a combo stone you only need one side.

Keep working it with that carbon clever. I can see myself without oil in mine. Try doing using different oils to and see what the result is. Try WD-40, mineral oil, 3 in 1, sewing machine oil, etc... Theres a lot of different variables to try now. You could even just use water or lather. I like the lather sometimes when I can see the stone is starting to glaze up. You should definitely get that suction feel on a trans or black. I get it every time at about the 50 lap mark and keep going to till 300 (my stone is smaller than yours.... you know what, I don't like the sound of that).

Its nice to see more people starting to get arks and experiment with them. A lot of people would swear against them saying arks were good for knives but too rough for razors. I would always just want to say that they didn't know what the potential of a good ark was.

Wid,

How does NW black translucent compare to their hard black?

I bought the black (the one they rate at 1200) 8x3 a couple of months ago, but haven't had a chance to play experiment with it much. If I'm not mistaken, that's the stone you you have pictures of on the first page. Seems like a really tough rock (SG 2.68; took me many, many hours to lap and break in) and I feel it is perfectly suitable for razors. Did you find the two markedly different? It's fair to note that the price difference is substantial between the two. It'd be interesting to hear if you noticed any difference in performance.

Alex.

I can't answer the hard black from NW vs their black trans, but I do have two dan's hard blacks, had a dans trans and have a NW black trans.

The dans stone is lapped finer when you get it. In the long term, it probably doesn't make much difference as long as you:
* break a stone in and never lap it again
* use the right lubricant (remember, more viscosity should be an easier path to a finer cut, and less to a faster)

Either in this thread, someone said they verified that NW laps their hones, which is not surprising (commonplace in the natural stone industry is to use a rotary lapper that laps the face of a stone to get out saw marks). They are just stopping at a coarser step than Dans does.

I bought my dans black off of the seconds page. Anything they sell on the seconds page has at least one good side. It was probably about the same price as the NW stone. I like them about the same, I guess - in the end I could get the same edge off of either once both are broken in.

IF someone here is using an arkansas stone and not getting an edge they'd like to get, hone your razor, linen and leather it and then shave. The next day, give the razor 20 of the lightest laps you can possibly give on the hard ark again if the stone is still a tiny bit aggressive - true weight of the razor laps - and then linen and shave again. Do that until the edge is like you like. No heavy strokes or you'll ruin your effort and have to start over.

Of course, you can do the same thing by working the edge up, linen and then leather, and then take the light passes on the stone and linen and leather again until the HHT is severing and flinging hairs or better. I have no idea why that seems to work better than just progressing up to light strokes, but it does, and I've gotten superb edges even on something like a washita stone, which otherwise makes a shaving edge that is pretty difficult to use around your chin.

I haven't had either stone long enough to give a fair comparison. Just by the feel of the stone(s) you can tell there is a pretty good difference in the smoothness in between the two, the trans being much smoother. Then again, one was dressed up to 1500 grit and the other 2500. Does that make a big difference? I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by AlexanderI

Wid,

How does NW black translucent compare to their hard black?

I bought the black (the one they rate at 1200) 8x3 a couple of months ago, but haven't had a chance to play experiment with it much. If I'm not mistaken, that's the stone you you have pictures of on the first page. Seems like a really tough rock (SG 2.68; took me many, many hours to lap and break in) and I feel it is perfectly suitable for razors. Did you find the two markedly different? It's fair to note that the price difference is substantial between the two. It'd be interesting to hear if you noticed any difference in performance.

Alex.

.

Did a few hundred more laps with the cleaver on the black and trans stone tonight. Seems they are coming along real nice. While the black feels very smooth to the touch the trans stone feels extremely smooth but with a velvety feel.

While I was cleaning the trans stone tonight I bumped it on the faucet, it made a ringing sound almost like what you'd expect from a piece of crystal. For thee heck of it I grabbed the black and did the same thing.................thudddd. Just thought that was interesting.

Honed a razor with a progression of Arkansas stones using Dan's honing solution. It went; Washita>Hard>Black>Trans.

The edge turned out very nice but I think I can improve on it. First time out with them, I'm happy with the results. can only improve with time.

I have both the Hard Black and the Black Translucent from NW and consider both top finishers.When they are both polished sufficiently you can see the difference in the size of the pores.
The Black stone pores are slightly larger than the Translucent, but there is not much difference in the razor edge after using either one.
The pores in the Translucent are even smaller than the two Charnley Forest hones I have.
I can get just as good an edge from either stone, than I can from my Ozuko Asagi 5+ or Suehiro Gokumyo 20k, the only thing I have finer is a polished Spyderco Uf.
I have been using slurry worked up with a well worn 400 grit diamond plate from a soft Ark on the Arks which has aided in the speed problem and gives that lovely sandblasted look that I get from the Ozuko. (not that the looks does anything) I just like the way it looks.
The edge from the Arks is super smooth as well, I cant understand why more people don't use them.