Thread: Arkansas Stones - Oil or water?

Originally Posted by jkatzman

I go dry on my surgical black Ark. I do 100 back and forth laps each side. Then 50 back and forth on each side under running water. I stop at 50 because the blade sticks to the stone even under running water. When that happens, I know its ready to go. Works faster then oils. Gives a very high polish and edge to the blade and the shave is very smooth. I follow up with 50 laps on fine linen and 60 laps on my strops. I also find this technique works with the majority of steel. Much better then finishing with chromium oxide.

Don’t forget when using any of the Arkansas True Hard Stones (True Hard, Black, Translucent), dry, to wash them thoroughly with Dawn dish washing soap to clean the swarf out of the pores.

This is very interesting. I have Balistol, Cutting board oil, mineral oil, and WD-40 so I guess I will be giving them all a try. I do like Balistol. Thanks for bringing this thread back up.

I use straight Ballistol on Arks. & water with a small amount of Ballistol on my Water hones.

Slawman

So do you all who use Akansas stones find that they work well with certain blades? Like great for German Steal but not as good with England steals? Just trying to learn a few of the details.

Originally Posted by Gasman

So do you all who use Akansas stones find that they work well with certain blades? Like great for German Steal but not as good with England steals? Just trying to learn a few of the details.

I have had success with all types of steel. Some might take a bit more time or strokes, but I get ‘em there.

Originally Posted by heiopei

i like balistol too. water solutable, so good mix between oil and water. the viscosity is on the thinner side and you can even thinner it further with water. no issues with the skin: over here in germany there are midwifes who use it for babies. relativly cheap.

I mix a small amount of Ballistol with my water I use on my water hones. Can't really say if it makes a big difference but I haven't found it to hurt anything. On another note Ballistol is all I use on my strops both vintage a new. Both my imported Koken & Jager shell strops Feel brand new & the Jager was very dry when I got it having been hung in a Barn for over 20 years with no care at all. I also use Ballistol on every hole I drill in metal. It really helps when driling hardened high carbon steel.
Also I use only Ballistol on my "oil" stones now.

Why not all of the above? I am slowly converting the 3-dozen or so blades in my rotation to a "Thin to Thick" regimen on my Surgical Black as I outlined in post #2434 in Hone of the Day, but here is the shorter version:
1. Start dry
2. Running water to the "sticking point"
3. Add a drop of dish soap and keep going
4. Wash thoroughly and dry; add oil (WD-40 for me) to finish

I'm getting my best edges ever playing around with this-I'd be interested in hearing how others do in trying this if anybody does it. Aaron

edit: I just realized from looking back through this thread that the 1st 2 steps of this I learned from JKatzman's earlier post, which I just expanded on to see how far I could push it with the dish soap and the oil-maybe overkill, but my face isn't complaining.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Why not all of the above? I am slowly converting the 3-dozen or so blades in my rotation to a "Thin to Thick" regimen on my Surgical Black as I outlined in post #2434 in Hone of the Day, but here is the shorter version:
1. Start dry
2. Running water to the "sticking point"
3. Add a drop of dish soap and keep going
4. Wash thoroughly and dry; add oil (WD-40 for me) to finish

I'm getting my best edges ever playing around with this-I'd be interested in hearing how others do in trying this if anybody does it. Aaron

edit: I just realized from looking back through this thread that the 1st 2 steps of this I learned from JKatzman's earlier post, which I just expanded on to see how far I could push it with the dish soap and the oil-maybe overkill, but my face isn't complaining.

Aaron,
I'll give this a try. I recently touched up a razor on my translucent which, as of this morning, is shaving nicely. I'll see if this improves the edge. If I can get to it tomorrow I'll test it out for my Sunday morning shave.
I'm curious about using tape on the spine when honing dry; feel like it wouldn't slide very smoothly?
I'll post my results in the Hone of the day thread.
Thanks for pushing the envelop!
Paul

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Why not all of the above? I am slowly converting the 3-dozen or so blades in my rotation to a "Thin to Thick" regimen on my Surgical Black as I outlined in post #2434 in Hone of the Day, but here is the shorter version:
1. Start dry
2. Running water to the "sticking point"
3. Add a drop of dish soap and keep going
4. Wash thoroughly and dry; add oil (WD-40 for me) to finish

I'm getting my best edges ever playing around with this-I'd be interested in hearing how others do in trying this if anybody does it. Aaron

edit: I just realized from looking back through this thread that the 1st 2 steps of this I learned from JKatzman's earlier post, which I just expanded on to see how far I could push it with the dish soap and the oil-maybe overkill, but my face isn't complaining.

That's one of the cool things about Arkies, I do almost the exact opposite sequence and get incredible edges!

I'm tempted to try an ark to see if it would improve my edge from my coticules.