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Thread: Buying Arkansas Stones

  1. #11
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    If you were sold a stone that was advertised as a Washita, you'd expect it to fall within a certain density range. The same with a soft, hard, or translucent Ark. They each have their own range of S.G. or density. Plain and simple, if you bought a stone that was supposed to be one of these and it was outside the range that fits the advertised stone...

    The rest of the seller's stock of hard and or translucent may fall right where they're supposed to, and that's great. Has nothing to do with the O.P. nor letting people know that the soft/Washita variety are outside spec.

    The point is, if the seller has no stones that fit in the soft or Washita categories by density or S.G. it would be nice to know about it as why bother trying to purchase one from them if they don't have any in that range of density? So basically due to your post, I will avoid ALL the vendors who sell any Arks advertised as Washita or soft rather than have to go through the trouble of buying something that isn't to spec and getting stuck with return shipping costs. I'd prefer to get a vintage Pike lily white from eBay if the vendor or vendors can't be trusted.
    Last edited by eKretz; 10-04-2014 at 12:17 AM.

  2. #12
    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    I've measured vintage and new true hard stones and found all that had any translucence to be 2.6 or above. Both the new norton black and trans were right at 2.6 SG, as is the dans black, a vintage bone colored trans that I have. I have another non-translucent white stone that's over 2.6 SG by a little bit and the black trans from natural whetstone was somewhere over 2.7 (I actually measured it at 2.85, but I don't know if that's actually possible because the specific density of the particles in the stones are explained as being lower than that generally)...silicon dioxide is specified at 2.65 SG in general. No clue how much variability there is in that.

  3. #13
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    My black translucent from NW measured at 2.67 SG but I'm not very confident in my weight measurement as it was only measured with an uncalibrated postal scale.

    I'd expect a good roughing stone (Ark) to fall in more like the lower 2.3ish range though.

  4. #14
    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    Quote Originally Posted by eKretz View Post
    If you were sold a stone that was advertised as a Washita, you'd expect it to fall within a certain density range. The same with a soft, hard, or translucent Ark. They each have their own range of S.G. or density. Plain and simple, if you bought a stone that was supposed to be one of these and it was outside the range that fits the advertised stone...

    The point is, if the seller has no stones that fit in the soft or Washita categories by density or S.G. it would be nice to know about it as why bother trying to purchase one from them if they don't have any in that range of density? So basically due to your post, I will avoid ALL the vendors who sell any Arks advertised as Washita or soft rather than have to go through the trouble of buying something that isn't to spec and getting stuck with return shipping costs. I'd prefer to get a vintage Pike lily white from eBay if the vendor or vendors can't be trusted.
    Here's my suggestion for new stones.
    * soft stones from natural whetstone (they are gritty and have good bite)
    * washitas from vintage. If you don't know how to spot a washita stone without a label, get a labeled stone
    * hard stones from natural whetstone (the dark gray trans they have), trans from dans and black from dans (dans has a great prep procedure for their stones)

    i am not compensated by any of them. Actually, I'm not compensated by anything related to razors or tools or stones, I seem to send my compensation to them instead.

    In my opinion, halls has nice quality stones, but they are sometimes so far out of flat that a razor user wouldn't ever be able to tolerate them. I made the mistake of buying a black 12x3 from halls as my first arkansas stone (that's not a misprint). By the time I got rid of it, I had a flat spot in the middle about 10x2 1/2. That was after a lot of lapping. Halls has also gone up a lot in price since then. If you're going to pay big for hard stones, buy dans.
    eKretz likes this.

  5. The Following User Says Thank You to DaveW For This Useful Post:

    eKretz (10-04-2014)

  6. #15
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    Thanks Dave, that's very helpful.

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