Thread: New to me Washita Lily White

I seen a rose red for sale on eBay. It wasnt a very high price but was still going. It also wasnt very red in color. I dont know enough about them so i passed on it.

Mike, give me a little time to play with this one and to get to know it and you got a deal. Im always willing to send you anything i have to play with. Wait, that didnt come out right. Ha.

Id really like to keep the many years of burnish on the top of this stone even though it is a tiny bit dished. Time will tell. I took a sick day today so im going to lap the edges a bit to clean up some chips on the corners and lap the glue side than give it a go. I will post up my findings later today.

You have fun with that.!! Went through a pack of 220 grt., and a small DMT, getting mine lapped.

Harder than a wedding night, weiner.

I found this one to not be very hard. I had no issue lapping. I did all sides just to clean up the small sides. Then went over the edges to take off the sharps. I started on my belt sander to take off the Glue from the backside. Then went with 120, 180, 220, 320 and 400 by hand on a piece of marble tile I use for lapping.



I've now spent about 3 hours on it playing. I brought up a little slurry and took a razor that I had just worked on the buffer. So it had NO bevel left! Figured I give the stone a hard time to start with.
I managed to set a bevel without too much of an issue. It might have taken a little more time than using the Green Brick, but not an extreme amount of time. I killed the edge and set it again just to be sure.
I then washed off the stone and went with more Balistol and water. What I've been finding is the edge looses its sharpness. I've done this over and over and I still get the same outcome. I'm not sure what is going on with it but something is happening. I'm going to set it aside for now so I can get to some other razors. Not too sure what is happening but it's not agreeing with me right now.

It set a nice bevel with slurry using a diamond card and oil. If I can't figure out something with it the next few times I pick it up I might be sending it out for another's opinion. It's just a very odd thing. And with it being as soft as it was during the lapping makes me wonder.

Took the same razor up to 12K and a Thuri and no issues, so it's not the razor. Could be just my judgment. I will need to go as far as I can with the Washita, then jump to the Arkie and see what happens. Maybe next week.

Wecome to the wacky world of Arkies! Slurry on Arks is not recommended, because of the way it leaves the edges. Weak, ready to crumble. One way around if you want to use slurry because it is so fast is use one side dressed to 80-100 grit(for bevel setting) the other dressed to 220 to get past the chips( bur). Or you can strop after you bevel set get rid of the bur on a linen strop. Worked for me, hope it can work for you.

Slurry on a washita? Don't do that anymore. Absolutely not necessary. Let the stone do its thing. Don't fight the force!

Agree...no slurry.
Did you burnish it, Jerry.!?

I keep mine burnished, takes for ever to remove chips, if there's any. But mine sounds harder, than yours ( semi translucent )

I had to start somewhere. I only slurryed from one side. The original, darker coloered side was lapped too but i hadnt burnished it yet. The stone is a bit soft. I figured id have one side unburnished for the hard work (the glue side i cleaned up) then use the other side for finishing on. I will spend some time burnishing it on my next days off and give it a try again.

The original finish on the face really wasnt burnished. I dont think this stone had seen much use. I will get serious next week.

I agree that it is a good idea to keep one side "awake" so you basically have two different faces. It can be very useful. Jerry, I have no idea what you are, or aren't doing, and it is very hard to give you help. When I lap a side to freshen up the cutting ability, I don't leave the slurry on. I rinse it off. It is the rough surface that you create that does the cutting. I HAVE used slurry before and nothing like you describe happened though so I don't know if that is what it is. I don't use slurry anymore because if you are not careful and large chunk can get in the mix and being 99% silica (hard!) it can really scratch things up.

I don't know what you are using for tests that it is losing sharpness. A HHT? or AHT? TPT? It COULD be that it is actually still sharp but not "toothy" anymore. Have you tried to keep going and see if it ends up shaving?

Other than that it is pretty confusing as I don't think I have ever experienced what you are describing.

I think you said it Steel. Not being toothy any more so its making me think its not sharp as in its loosing not gaining. I came to this thought just the other day but ha ent had time to get back to it. Work always gets in the way. Im going to try a bit in a couple days and see where it goes. I had to start somewhere and slurry has been a good friend for me lately so i guess thats why i went that way. Now i know.