Thread: Quality Variation in Black Ark Stones

I promised I'd show the Dan's trans when I got it.

I'm so fat with stones that I kind of wish I hadn't ordered it because it showed up right around 3/4ths inch on a listing that said 10x3x1.

I know 10x3 trans stones aren't common, so there's a little wiggle room there, but I don't like the new standard of 3/4th being considered 1 inch (dan's isn't the only one that does it, pretty much everyone does now), I have enough 1 inch stones that I don't like the way they sit in the box at 3/4ths and I just don't want to pay full price for a stone that's 3/4ths or anywhere close to it. That's really picky, but it's a little over 300 bucks even for a second, so I wish it would've been labeled as having a thickness of 3/4ths - I'd have left it there. Wish I would've called first!

I'll probably unload it sometime in the future (not yet), but I've sold these big ones before and I have trouble getting a good fraction of my money back.

This stone is pretty smart to start in terms of cutting action, so I've started the chisel on it. When I'm done with it, this fairly soft buck chisel will barely darken the oil, and it should pretty much make for a sharp razor any way you rub a razor on it - forward, backward, choppy short motions, circles -whatever. It is brash enough that I will probably sift through my tools and find something a lot harder. Japanese steel (if you can find it without it being laminated) shuts down the cutting action of these stones fastest.

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https://s28.postimg.org/es1tl3li5/20170809_200729.jpg

On the bright side, I did get a pair of stones off of peebay at the same time, 2x6x1/2, a soft and a trans with a nifty little box for $50. The little trans gives up nothing in quality to any other stone that I have, but it does have a big inclusion in one side from being dropped or banged against something (still solid, though). with this little pair, I could prep any razor that is relatively worth prepping in 10 minutes from corrective work to polish. I don't know quite why I buy other large expensive stones! there's nothing on the market that will make razors sharper than this pair once you get a handle on using a good linen. Even Chrome ox doesn't bring the sharpness up more, and it certainly makes the sharpness a lot more transient.

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Who else would whine about a trans that's 10x3 and 3/4ths plus a hair thick? I guess not many people, but it's not quite what I was looking for - I was hoping to scratch the itch in a terminal way, but this won't do it.

I didn't take a tape to my True Hard to see how close to 10 x 2 x 1 it was. Now I'm curious. I don't think I'd miss that quarter inch enough to kick up a fuss if it came up shy. I probably won't even manage to do much more than dish my 1/2" Best stones a bit over the course of a lifetime, I'd never wear enough into the stone to ever really know the difference.

Sometimes gold can be found on ebay. That's how I stumbled into the 12" x 2.5" monster Arkie I've got. $90 for that, 2 smaller Arks, an Eze Lap hone, a few scythe stones and old carborundum type knife hones I'll probably never use. I think it was an OK deal, I just hope the seller never finds out what the big one was and what they sell for. Poor fella might have kittens, cause I'd have paid twice that easy for that alone.

I don't think most people would miss a quarter, either, and maybe I'll grow up and stop whining at some point!! It's not like anyone has ever gone through a quarter of an inch of trans ark in their lifetime ( a hand tool woodworker and repairman that I know has used a hard black arkansas 2x8 stone his whole career - and not lapped it, but has done the 18th and 19th century trick of making sure to work the surface of the stone overlapping the edges (to keep it flat). He's used the same stone for 40 years, sharpening multiple things a day on it, and no perceptible change in the stone thickness.

Only factory carvers that I've seen have ever done any damage to those stones (black or trans) and I think some of that was intentional to sharpen shaped carving tools.

At any rate, the stone is wonderfully translucent, no high powered flashlight needed and once I get it conditioned, I will probably forget all about the thickness the first time a razor bevel comes off looking like a mirror with a completely undamaged edge.

(but I would've liked a full inch to match some of my other older stones, and the new black dan's stone that I got on special from them, which is quite possibly the most fantastic piece of novaculite that I've ever gotten aside maybe from one of my washitas)

Davew. Come on now. With all the stones that have passed through your shop if there was a way to "scratch the itch" for good I think you would have found it. You just like to buy stones! The big surgical black I got from Dans is well over an inch so our purchases balance each other out! I have to say that is one nice looking translucent you have there though. Shame on you for hogging all the hones!

The pair you got look like they were a great deal and a great set. Are they labeled?

Nope, that pair is unlabeled. I'm guessing 60s or 70s, because the box is cedar and that seemed to have been popular for a while. They came out of the south, so who knows if some small specialty shop handled them. The picture was good enough on the auction for me to be able to tell that the stone was going to be translucent, and it's got a coating of white hangar rash on the outside of it and will look more like frosted glass once i get some oil on it.

You're right about the itch. I'm sort of like a guy who eats a dozen donuts at once because they're all fine, but I just didn't quite get what I was looking for out of each of them. In this case, it's like I have a box full of dunkin donuts, but I really want Oram's, and outside of a couple of locations, those are super rare.

Totally agree with CrOx degrading a good Arkansas edge. I have noticed that on quite a few that I have shaved with right off the stone (with linen/shell of course). After a few shaves the CrOx will level up a bit but I always prefer the Arkansas edge right off the stones.

The arkansas edge has staying power that the crox edge doesn't. Same with a good jnat, it's as easy to shave with as a crox edge, less harsh and with a good linen, it never needs to go back.

Crox is like a chiropractor. You feel better for a little bit, but you're going back to it too often if you start to rely on it.

The trans/black ark edge is more like a...... vasectomy? Extremely useful and works for a long time!

Originally Posted by DaveW

The trans/black ark edge is more like a...... vasectomy? Extremely useful and works for a long time!

Whoa whoa whoa! That hurts just reading it.

The stone was in the specials page for a reason, when they knock-off a hundred bucks there is a reason, 1/4"=100.00? why not.
Im sure Dan would exckange for a full 1 in one for regular price.

Their stones are the same size in full price. The reason that this one was in the specials is that there's a tiny spot on the opposite side that looks like a permanent water spot, but doesn't come out.

Their regular price for these is somewhere around $415 or so, which despite their ability to make excellent stones, is a little bit out of the realm of reasonable in my opinion. Just as their black stones are great, but $330 is a bit out of bounds there, too, in my opinion.

The black trans stone from natural whetstone is just as good in quality and density for about $200, and I may just order one of those to compliment this, instead. I did learn that I need to call and ask ordering one of those before, too, though. I got a stone that was not even thickness, but that was just a geometric issue, as the stone was excellent after conditioning the surface.

(I could be wrong about that, I think they'd have mentioned it in the stone auction if it could've been that size, but the description said 10x3x1. )

on their regular bench stone page, the normal size 2" wide stones specify the thickness as 3/4-1.

For what it's worth, Norton went to 3/4ths inch a long time ago.