Thread: Arkansas Adventures...

Originally Posted by Marshal

Tonight's experiment - full Arkansas progression on a new (to me) Morley clover stamp.



Talk about a hard fought battle. Left to right, Soft Arkie, Hard Arkie, True Hard Arkie. Morley needed full bevel set and (small) chip repair at the toe.

To start, all my stones, these included, have been surfaced differently on each side. The 'back' side tends to be rougher, the 'front' is burnished, or just more fine. So starting on the back of the Soft Arkie, I started to wear away the chip in the toe. Only took about 5 or 10 minutes, I figured at this point surely the bevel was set. I was mistaken. But I didn't realize it just yet. Flipped to the front side of the stone and got to work. It felt kinda sticky on the pad of my thumb after a hundred laps or so. But not quite right. I didn't listen to that little voice, and moved on to the hard stone. After 10 minutes, maybe less, I decided it was time to check if it would shave arm hair. Nothing. Felt dull on the thumb pad. Back to the soft stone. But not the fast cutting backside. I'm a glutton for punishment.

After a good 10 or 15 minutes on the face of the soft stone I realized I was only half there, and I could've had this finished twice over if I had just used the rough back of the stone. Because this type of work is specifically why I left it coarse. 5 minutes later the bevel was set. Flipped over to the face of the soft stone, TPT felt sticky all along the edge. Looking good. Moved on to the face of the hard stone (No need to use the coarse side). A few hundred laps later it was taking off arm hair nice and easy. Now we're making progress right? Well, no. Moved on to the back side of the True Hard which is currently just as sent from Dan's and after 100 laps did another little shave test. Wouldn't cut hair. No logical reason for this, just wouldn't fly.



Back to the soft stone. Coarse side, because I learned my lesson earlier. This time there was a lot of back & forth between the soft and hard stone and finally it dawned on me what was happening. 1: Lots of distractions. 2: I was using tape. And not replacing between stones because it didn't look too worn. Not at all like it gets when I'm using Synthetics, but that was enough to throw things off.



At this point I took a few hours away from the stones. Needed a break, dinner, and to sort out distractions. Came back to it and started at the ground up. Changed tape half through bevel setting, when I flipped over to the face of the soft stone, when I jumped to the hard stone, and again when I jumped to the back side of the True Hard. Stropped after the Soft Arkie, Hard Arkie, and again after the 'coarse' face of the True Hard. Thumb pad test was a go at each stage. Everything checked out under the loupe. Arm hair test passed after the Hard and coarse True hard stones. Flipped the True Hard to the burnished face and did some plain water laps. Little bit of palm stropping at the mid point. When I was done with water laps, I made a nice slick shave lather and finished off with 150 strokes.

If this thing can't pass the shave test tomorrow I will be surprised, because it feels like a pretty sweet edge. Don't have the will power to shave test it tonight though.

I have spent the last couple YEARS getting an all ark progression down. The tests are all different, for me, when using these stones as opposed to synthetics. A soft Arkansas can set a bevel but if you are working from a bevel setting surface it doesn't pass my arm hair test until I move on to a hard. With a chip removed from an edge I don't see how the bevel was not set! It is also really easy to use too much pressure or make a mistake. Now a razor takes me between 25-45 minutes depending on how much time I have to spend setting bevel with one of my Washitas. They are puzzles for sure since the surface of an Arkansas stone is always changing. Sometimes in the middle of a session. Good luck man. You have the skills I am sure to crack the code.....if they don't crack you first.