Thread: What did I find?

Congratulate on the find...

Judging from the images you have found a very interesting bone colored translucent Arkansas, usually when they are like this color they are very hard, very fine, very slow and have less light translucency... also you seem to have a fine Washita there.

how to clean your stones will depends on what you want to use them with, if you are planning to use them with oil, I would say just lap them and use dish soap to clean them preferably one with antibacterial since you will hone your razors on them, But if you are planning to hone with water which is my preference as it is faster and give sharper edge IMO, I would not recommend blindly boiling the stones especially the denes Hard translucent, as putting the stone in the hot water while the core of the stone is colder may fracture the stone or pulling the stone out of the water while it is still hot and leaving it to air cool will damage the stone too as the outside of the stone will cool faster than the core which will lead to fracture... To boil your stones you need to put them in a room temptation water then start to heat them to gentle simmer for very short period of time then turn of the heat and let them cool inside the hot water, this way is safer with porous stones like Washita’s but with the translucents and the true hard there will be always a chance that your stone might get damaged, believe me I learned this the hard way. There is a safer way to clean the stones, you can soak them in rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) for several days giving them a shake or two a day, I use 99.9% to soak any oily stone I get for 1-5 days depending on the stone and the level of accumulated dirt.




( this washita was a jet balck when I got it, I brushed it then soaked it for a week you can even see how clean it is from inside thanks to that chip )

You can substitute the rubbing alcohol with car brakes cleaner/ degreaser it is very effective maybe better than the concentrated isopropyl alcohol, but I happen to have the alcohol in large quantity for other uses. Having said the above usually the dens stones need only wiping to clean them as they don’t soak oil.

After lapping you stones you will have to dress them properly to get them to perform the best for you, the best way to do so IMO for Arkansas stones is to sharpen a very hard steel knife or tool on them with heavy pressure but you need to be careful not to scratch to stone or injure yourself while doing so.... then you will have one of the finset stones on the world





BTW, if you have a local lapidary in your area they can lap the stones initially for you then you can finish them by hand.


Happy Lapping

Thanks for the information! I have been doing a little work with sand paper each day on some of the stones. I will get some pictures of them cleaned up soon. For dressing the stone, I have a leather splitter with a blade with a chisel grind. It is 8 inches across, and very, very hard steel. I think it should work well. I have cleaned up two of the stones at this point, with sand paper and soapy water. I am hesitant to boil any of my stones. Honestly, none of these look like they have soaked in oil, except for the large grey one. That seems like a standard two sided knife sharpening stone. Is the Washita the one on the lower row on the right side in my first picture? That one is a pretty hard stone, and has a lot of dark speckles. It is actually shaped as a large slip stone, but I did lap one side clean and smooth with 400 grit paper. I am going to try and get all my stones lapped with 400 grit, then start moving up in the grits. I did a little bit of sanding on the translucent stone, and made almost no process except to clean the surface of the stone, but it isn't dished, so I will use it as is.

Originally Posted by Drygulch

I am going to try and get all my stones lapped with 400 grit, then start moving up in the grits. I did a little bit of sanding on the translucent stone, and made almost no process except to clean the surface of the stone, but it isn't dished, so I will use it as is.

Looool the Translucenct killed your hope early here, a sandpaper will not do the trick for you got yourself 60 loose grit powder and flatten it on Al flat glass or granite. You don't have to go beyond 400 stop here and start smoothing all my Arkansas hone are lapped to 400 only but I take my time smoothing out the hone,,, and yes that the anticipated Washita.

Waiting for those pics and for your thoughts on the stones.

You are welcome sir, glade to help

Happy honing,

I have a 4 inch thick piece of granite that is 24 inches by 12 inches with a flat surface on my work bench. I have been putting the sand paper on this to work the stones. My slate ones have sanded into a mud very quickly. The Arkansas stones are taking a lot longer. The stone right under the bottle in that first picture has a slight dish, but seems almost as hard as the translucent stone. As I sand it, it is showing a green-blue color. The stone next to that is a purple slate and is pretty soft. It only took 20 minutes to lap. My next purchase will be a DMT stone for lapping.

Here are some pictures of the stones cleaned up a bit. One picture shows the Washita, the Translucent, and the blue-green stone. The blue green stone is a little dished, and is SLOWLY responding to the sand paper. Second picture shows the two ceramic stones. I started cleaning the bone colored one, but haven't done anything with the white one yet. The larger of the two pices of slate was in the OP, middle of the second row. It is now very smooth, but looks rough. The last piece of slate is Welsh Dragon's Tounge, just as a comparison for how it looks. Its not the same stuff as the slate next to it. Any ideas on what the blue green one is, or what type of slate I have?