Thread: Ebay Gamble

I saw a lot on Ebay that I couldn't resist. It had what appear to be a Washita and Black Arkansas, and then there was this:



Any guesses what that large hone in back is? I'm thinking dingy translucent, but I'm not fully confident in that assessment.

Its a hard black Arkansas stone, you can tell by the discoloration in the lower left about 3 inches from the edge.

Looks like either a black Ark or a very dark (some call them "black") translucent Ark to me too. The black translucent stones are just barely translucent - check it in the dark with a flashlight - due to the dark color, light will only transmit a small distance so check near an edge.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of classifications. Surgical black, true black, "blacks" that aren't black, true hard, black hard, and so on. That's part of what makes the guess work difficult. Sidmind's guess - hard black - sounds like one I'm familiar with, but can't be the same as the 'black hard' classification I know of because that only comes in 2 colors, black and blue-black.

The discolored spot looked to me like someone got a drop of oil on the edge and cleaned away the swarf there. But that may be natural discoloration. In any case, if that turns out to be a finishing grade Arkie, I will be ecstatic. I can't imagine anyone needing a medium/hard grade stone that size (12" x 2.5" x 1") but stranger things have happened.

beautyfull ark A trans ark like this and few diferent naguras to use on it , is all you need for finishing
an exeptional edges

Now I'm getting all excited. Can't wait to get hold of it, clean it up, and get some light on it so I can see if it's a translucent.

I've got a small piece of coticule and BBW to make some makeshift Nagura stones with. Plus bits of 3 different Welsh Slates and PHIG to play with, but I doubt they'll yield much that can't be found with their parent hones. Any other recommendations for nagura stones? I'm clueless on that area of honing so I've no idea what type of nagura would be used for what.

Hmmm...research time! If that's a translucent (or a true hard/black equivalent) I am going to have a LOT of fun with that stone.

Originally Posted by Marshal

Yeah, I've seen a lot of classifications. Surgical black, true black, "blacks" that aren't black, true hard, black hard, and so on. That's part of what makes the guess work difficult. Sidmind's guess - hard black - sounds like one I'm familiar with, but can't be the same as the 'black hard' classification I know of because that only comes in 2 colors, black and blue-black.

A few years ago, there were far fewer classifications, me thinks many of the ones we have today are made up by sellers of recent times.
Not that the more recent classifications are not cool and all, its just my opinion after owning them all that few are different in usage.

Originally Posted by sidmind

A few years ago, there were far fewer classifications, me thinks many of the ones we have today are made up by sellers of recent times.
Not that the more recent classifications are not cool and all, its just my opinion after owning them all that few are different in usage.

This is my suspicion as well. I vaguely remember back when the grades were: soft, Hard, and Black. I can only imagine Translucent isn't new. But I would figure most of these variations of 'black' stones are all in the same general category - finishers.

Like Sid said, the slurry isn't material from the Arkansas itself - it comes from a softer stone, and that is what will be doing the work. And the purpose would be to make your hard/finishing stone behave like a lower grade stone. Example A:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...lurry-ark.html

Now the original poster of that thread used slurry from a coticule to speed up bevel setting and what not on his soft Arkansas hone with video of the process. Elsewhere in the thread you'll see where another member used the same method to do a one stone progression on his Black Arkansas with good results. As for me, I don't have much experience with slurry but I do enjoy playing with it. And there is no harm trying it out on an Arkansas hone provided you don't make a mistake and slurry up your burnished side.

I have a simple solution for that too. On all of my stones the edges of the burnished side are rounded. On the rough side I use for slurry experiments, the edges are beveled. Makes for a quick easy visual so I don't wreck the 'good' side by mistake.

Originally Posted by sidmind

A few years ago, there were far fewer classifications, me thinks many of the ones we have today are made up by sellers of recent times.
Not that the more recent classifications are not cool and all, its just my opinion after owning them all that few are different in usage.

Soft and hard were it originally. Hard was a black or a translucent stone (there was no need to state that a light colored hard was a translucent stone because there weren't main line catalog "hard" stones that weren't).

Catalog stones were:
* Soft arkansas (offered as a low cost alternative to washita)
* Washita of various grades
* Hard

The tweener stones that have SG of about 2.4 or 2.5 probably would've been discarded back then. Now they're marketed as "hard", but they will cut finely, too, if never scuffed up again after new - just not poreless bright polish fine.

I've shaved off of a washita stone a few times, there's a lot of range for the stones depending on how they're used, and now that we have diamond hones, we can make a 2.7SG trans cut faster than a 2.1 SG coarse/soft washita that isn't scuffed.

Originally Posted by Marshal

So, I was in the middle of lapping the smaller stones (Jesus Christ these things are hard!), and taking pictures of the lapping/burnishing process. One side of that little black rock was very flat and smooth, and it didn't really need flattening - but when it came out of the water I saw something that really caught my attention:



At first I was thinking that was some sort of metallic inclusion, but then I started thinking about a banded black/translucent hybrid that I believe Euclid showed a picture of and that got the gears turning. So I broke out my trusty Flashlight to see if there were bit of translucent in that rock:







The light doesn't penetrate very far - only perhaps 1/8 or 3/16 of an inch, but that looks like translucent number 3 to my eyes.

Holy Shnikies!

Nice tranny!