Originally Posted by
DaveW
That then leads to the question of why they'd even produce natural soft and hard arks (which could come from other than the pike mine), and I don't know the answer to that. the market is broader for the trans stones (dental students, at least some, still get a finish stone for their tools, and you can sell small stones to work fishhooks, etc. The trans also makes a great finisher for knives after you've gone through the synthetics), but the softs, who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if they had more intermittent supply in the future or stopped production of natural stones due to the cost and waste involved in them (strangely, the old texts say that the washita comes out of the pike mine in huge chunks that have few flaws and can be easily processed into whetstones, but that is definitely not true about trans ark stones).
Maybe I'll write them sometime - not that anyone couldn't, but I think I could convince them I'm an enthusiast and that entertaining my questions is doing a good deed.