Thread: Ridding an Arkansas Stone of Oil.

Originally Posted by StewieS

Martin; I will find out tomorrow if this particular Ark performs better with water than oil. Not overly confident its worthwhile posting the results on this forum, as you guys most likely wont want to accept the results if the water turns out more favourable.

StewieS.

That's more than a little presumptious. Report any results you find.

I used oil forever on arkies. Water on coticules. This site opened my mind to experimentation and I tried water on arkies and may soon try oil on a coticule.

My personal experience with water on arkies was that it worked OK on the finer trannies and black arkies but the swarf would clog up the more porous washitas and softs. Couldn't tell much if any difference on the hard ark. After giving it a good shot, I decided to stick with oil on the lower 'grit' stones and use whatever was handy on the trannies and blacks. Smiths, water or lather. The burnishing on those top stones probably negates any advantage to either medium.

Originally Posted by kelbro

I used oil forever on arkies. Water on coticules. This site opened my mind to experimentation and I tried water on arkies and may soon try oil on a coticule.

I've always used oil, usually Smith's on Arks. Never have on coticules, only water or lather, but Sham used to use oil on some coticules, and said it worked well on certain stones.

Forgive me if I'm talking gibberish but from the posts I've read of StewieS he uses his hones for wood working tools, would this have an effect on how the hone performs with water vs oil?

PS. Ive never used an oil stone

It would be presumptuous to judge whether a stone works better with water than oil in one day also. The reason most "oilstones" are used with oil is because using water tends to allow the stones to load easier and the grit contained therein to dull faster. As most of these oilstones are very tightly bound, dull grit is a bad thing should one desire the stone to continue to cut quickly. Arks, (including many Washitas, which actually release a considerable amount with softer/less dense examples) for instance, don't release much of their grit at all when they dull, since they have such a tenacious bond. Personally I would never use water with my Washitas, but for the finer/denser stones that remove very little steel either way it makes far less difference and comes down more to preference.

For the cost of 6 dishwasher power balls and 2 1/2 hours of my time, I am confident I have removed at least 99% of the stones oil. I did not need the use of a slow cooker. I did not have to get advise from someone else on how to do it. I relied on that grey matter between the ears to find a solution. But feel free to use what ever method works for you.

regards StewieS;

As requested; I am forwarding the feedback after testing the Arkansas stone with water as the only lubricant. The 1st observation to note was that after spraying the top surface of the stone with water, the water did not soak within the stone, but maintained a unified float of film. That indicates to me that the stone is not porous by nature, but more tightly bound within its make up.

The 2nd observation to make is that when the stone surface was being worked by the chisel, the sound being given off was much deeper in tone to that experienced when oil was used as lubricant. A much more grittier sound. One could feel the chisels edge being worked in closer contact with the grain structure of the stone, versus having a float of oil interfere between the 2 surfaces.

The time taken to form an appreciable secondary bevel imo was 1/2 that compared to using oil, but apologies need to be made, as I did nor record the exact time difference. The sheen formed on the secondary bevel, to my eyes, looked no different to that being worked on oil, but one would expect it to be slightly lower.

The level of sharpness straight from the stone more than matched my requirements within woodworking, as testament by the paper test shown within the 2 following photo's.

Conclusion; as a once only test, I see no valid reason to return to using oil on this Arkansas stone. If any issues later arise on the question of water versus oil in preventing the stones surface from glazing over or clogging up, that would be dealt with during the normal practice of resurfacing during periodical stone flattening.

All attempts have been made to remain impartial within my findings.

Hopefully you found the above mentioned topic of some interest. If you decide to de-oil any of your sharpening stones in the future, make sure they are not a man-made Norton Crystolon/Carborundum, as this will likely destroy the manufacturers oil pre-fill.

On to the photo's.

regards Stewie;

Water on a well burnished hard Arkie gives a really sharp, smooth, sweet edge - hard to beat.

Stewie, I'm curious as to why you feel that information derived from honing a chisel is relevant on a straight razor site. There are plenty of edged tool sites. Why here?

Originally Posted by kelbro

Stewie, I'm curious as to why you feel that information derived from honing a chisel is relevant on a straight razor site. There are plenty of edged tool sites. Why here?

Kelbro; whether its honing a straight razor, or working the cutting edge of your woodworking tools, there is still a heavy reliance on the use of good quality honing stones. I have included this information on 3 other woodworking sites, but if you feel there is no relevance to sharing that information on this forum site, you only have to say so, and I am out of here.

regards StewieS;