Thread: True Hard Arkansas

After a long email conversation with with Kim at Dan's whetstone I commissioned them to cut me a big slab of true hard Arkansas. They normally don't cut true hard in this size but I persisted. Wasn't much of a trouble I just asked and they checked if they had it.

Lucky for me they did. I asked them to cut it and a week or so later it was on its way.

It's literally a translucent with some awesome looking banding. At a lower price than the translucent. That is a win to me.

It arrived today and I took it for a quick touch up test run. Didn't burnish it or anything and just used water. I'm not a believer of the whole burnishing train of thought and am happy with it wearing due to age and use. The shave will be the judge.


I love it. I may go through hones like people change socks but this one will not be going anywhere.

B/S/T Is Calling. Love That Rock!Ty

Quite a stone ! Glad to see that Dan's recovered from that fire they had awhile back. I was afraid it might have put them out of biz.

Beautiful stone.

Wow, that is a beautiful, gigantic stone-can you tell us her measurements?

Thanks guys,

Measures 10"x3"x1" length,width, height respectively

Cool looking stone!

That's pretty! It's also a bonus that the banding is so symmetrical.

I too am a fan of the arks earning their smoothness naturally with use.

I have no idea what the difference is between a translucent and a "true hard Arkansas." I'm not familiar with that term. Would someone please explain the difference?

"The Translucent Arkansas (extra fine) stone can be slightly more aggressive than the Black Arkansas stone. It is also very smooth to the touch and will help you achieve a keen edge your knives and razors. As you noted these large stones are more expensive – especially in the Translucent Arkansas grade. The reason behind this is that it is a more labor intensive product for us to come up with these large bench stones. We encounter more natural variations in the stone such as cracks that makes it more difficult for us to cut our products we manufacture out of this material. We do not cut a large volume of the Translucent Arkansas stones in the larger size stones........ If you are interested in this size of stone – I will need to confirm with my production manager and confirm if we will have this size available. It may take some time for us to come up with one if you wish to order this stone."

Taken from my email with Dan's whetstone. Those are Kim's words.

"The True Hard Arkansas (extra fine) stone can also be slightly more aggressive like the Translucent Arkansas stone in comparison to the Black Arkansas stone. The True Hard Arkansas stone is also known as the colored Translucent Arkansas stone. It is just like the Translucent Arkansas stone with the exception that it may have some of Translucent with some other colors such as white or black color streaking in the stone. We cannot guarantee any specific colors in the True Hard Arkansas stones. It is also is very smooth to the touch and will help you to get a razor sharp edge on your knives and razors. We do not intentionally cut this material especially in the larger stones. We also classify the Black Arkansas stones under the True Hard Arkansas category and will substitute the Black Arkansas for the True Hard Arkansas when it is available..........."

Again Kim's words from Dan's whetstone company.

Don't think anyone will be able to better describe the differences than that.