Thread: Ebay Gamble

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.

I'm sure you can put something on the trans but it is not going to slurry. You would have just as much luck slurring a diamond. Like iceni said it is as hard as granite.

Originally Posted by AlienEdge

I'm sure you can put something on the trans but it is not going to slurry. You would have just as much luck slurring a diamond. Like iceni said it is as hard as granite.

Its the slurry from the slurry stone which is doing the work, the ark has little to do with it, so it would not matter if it is a translucent or black just my opinion using slurry on an ark is pointless, might as well use a piece of glass, but I have not tried it myself so I should keep quite.

Originally Posted by sidmind

Its the slurry from the slurry stone which is doing the work, the ark has little to do with it, so it would not matter if it is a translucent or black just my opinion using slurry on an ark is pointless, might as well use a piece of glass, but I have not tried it myself so I should keep quite.

This is my point you could pour the slurry on a piece of railroad iron. The railroad iron is not going to slurry.

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.

The variation in the color isn't going to matter. You will have a good stone. I have surgical blacks and black translucent stones. They all work well.

I have thought that using slurries of the right Grit at the right time in the progression can and will speed things up a bit and get to finish faster, it should work with about any hard hone, Arkansas or not.

The slurry self education is forever interesting to me at this point.

Originally Posted by FAL

I have thought that using slurries of the right Grit at the right time in the progression can and will speed things up a bit and get to finish faster, it should work with about any hard hone, Arkansas or not.

The slurry self education is forever interesting to me at this point.

Surgical black and translucent arkies are very hard and they are a stone. Eschers are better if you like to use a slurry because it is mud slate and it will slurry. Arkies are great finishers but they don't dissolve with the water.

Originally Posted by AlienEdge

Surgical black and translucent arkies are very hard and they are a stone. Eschers are better if you like to use a slurry because it is mud slate and it will slurry. Arkies are great finishers but they don't dissolve with the water.

It's a slightly different technique than working with a Thuringian/Escher/Coticule. With those 3, you take a piece of the same type of stone and work up a slurry from the parent material. With a hard stone like a PHIG or Arkansas, what you're doing is more akin to Jnat slurry where you take a Nagura stone that is softer than the base stone and create a mud from the nagura stone to do low grit cutting and mid range polishing. Then when it's time you'll finish with just water on the actual hone. Kind of like throwing SIC grit on top of ceramic plate for lapping hard stones. The SIC does the cutting, the ceramic just provides a hard flat surface (and hopefully doesn't dish too bad before your hone is flat). It's actually preferable that the base stone doesn't break up/slurry itself.

The the stones you mention will work good as a slurry because the slurry comes from those stones. It is the quartz that is in the mud of the Escher that does the honing for you.