Best Surgical Black Arkansas Prepped and Ready for Action!
So you guys have done it again. LongHaul Tanker, Marshall, Steel and you other Ark gurus have kicked in my HAD. Anyway, I was really liking the edges I was getting off of the Norton Trans Ark I acquired in a trade with CJBianco recently:
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All these long Ark threads got me wanting to expand my Ark collection to a bigger black stone. And after long hours poring over this and other sites and checking out Dan's and other sites, the ones I wanted from Dan's seemed a little out of my current budget. SO I finally took a chance on this Surgical Black 8x3x1/2" from BestSharpeningStones. At less than $80, it was significantly cheaper; I just hoped that it would be up to the quality and flatness of the Dan's stones. Also, I like for most of my stones to fit the 8x3 slot in the Norton plastic holders I keep in my honing pond.
So it came in yesterday, and at first glance/feel, it seemed more grayish than black, and quite rough. The box provided is a basic wooden storage box with a particle board bottom. At the price, I didn't expect anything fancy. Here it is in its raw, unprepped state:
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Time to get to work! I started with pencil grids on both sides, and lapped the bejesus out of it under running water on both sides with my DMT 325 plate. Damn, these things are harder than Japanese arithmetic! At any rate, after a few minutes the two surfaces were locking up on the plate (always a good sign), and the pencil grids were gone, so it seemed reasonably flat.
Now I couldn't see bending over a cookie sheet and wearing my arthritic shoulder out lapping this thing on SiC grit, but I had another idea!:tu
I had 4 fresh 2x72 belts in 320, 400, 600 and 800 that I normally use for contouring and shaping scales on the grinder. I put each belt on and spritzed them with water while running to keep down the dust and make the lapping more even and efficient. Leaving the "back side" at 325 for more rough work, I just lapped the "slick side" in figure 8's over a flat graphite platen as evenly as I could, until it started to get sticky from the "mud," progressively chamfering the edges and corners as I went. After the 800, it was significantly smoother. Maybe half an hour's work and $10 worth of belts from Pop's. (I can order more). And yes, I'm sure this technique might be frowned upon by serious grinding gurus, but I was very careful, stood off the side in case a wet belt popped, and hey, it worked!
Then, instead of laboriously sanding upwards on wet-dry, I just progressively lapped it up the grits on my Norton hones (again under running water) from 1k, to 4/8k, and "finishing" on the Nani 12 and PHIG (which needed some more burnishing anyway!). I was pleased that with each stone, the suction "lock" that tells you you're near flat came pretty quickly. I finished this phase by more burnishing with the trans ark. Total time here maybe another half hour.
Finally, I took everyone's advice and started honing some heavy chef's knives and big hunters on it with water and dish soap, interspersed with probably a couple hundred laps of pressure passes from a big putty knife. Those knives came out scary sharp, and here is the final result:
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So it may not be 100% glass smooth to the standards of you real arkie aficionados, but it seems close enough for now. At any rate, I plan to try it on a razor I'm finishing up today. And since I've got the summer off, I may just convert all my edges to it if it proves its worth. I have decided that, after the last couple of years of just tinkering around without any real rhyme or reason with various natural finishers and not really coming to any systematic conclusions (JNATs, CNAT, etc.), I want to dedicate a year or so to just learning arks. Then maybe I'll get another JNAT or other finisher to learn completely after that. Keeping it simple.
I'll report back after shaving off this bad boy. Until then, SHD out. Aaron
