Thread: Dad's Arks

It is pretty easy to confuse some of those Smith's stones as Washita's unless you have the stone in hand. This longer pair was taken off a tri-hone.

So I posted about this little stone in Steve's "Arkansas" thread.


I'm still not sure what this little bitty stone is, maybe hard white, maybe true hard but it is just magical. I feel like I found the goose that lays the golden eggs because the edges are so amazing. I dressed it again with wet/dry up to 3k and since then, wow!...just WOW! I am tempted to go up to 5k but I'm afraid to. It was always good but since I dressed it it has been out of this world. I've been going through my collection since I redressed it and there has not been a single one that has had less than the best edge I can remember for that blade.
I have also codified a method which I have been playing with for a long time but just settled on as my go to. Maybe that has something.to do with it also. All I know is I'm not messing with what works...for now at least.

Paul, does it pass light?
That little 4 x 2 pictured above is a fast hard ark. I failed with it for razors the first couple of tries until I gave it the attention it deserved and flattened it. It was also solid white at one time and passes light pretty easy, kind of a bastard or second quality translucent and makes great edges. If it was a couple inches longer it would be perfect.

It isn't what I would call translucent but if you hold it to the light you can see light through it sort of. I flattened it and burnished the one side and left the other side the way it was after I flattened it and that thing makes smoking smooth edges.

I have a method I've been working out. I posted about it in Steve's Arkansas thread, kind of a tutorial...ish. I've refined it some since then but I can go all the way from beville set to finish with three stones, the one rainbow streaked one on either side, one block mounted one which I think might be a washita that I burnished as smooth as I could get it and then this little stone on either side. It's a lot of strokes, maybe a thousand or more but the finish product is laser keen and as smooth as can be. My idea was to capture what guys did decades or even a century or more ago when they really didn't have the option of magnification and just had to have a method that they tested and worked so they could trust it. I have nothing against magnification and in fact I do look at the edges sometimes but I've been trying to get the method or set of methods that I can use for about any razor which gives lightning strike shaves that are smooth just by working the method and some hair and thumbnail tests. So far it's been pretty successful. I haven't used it on every single variable but I've used it on full wedges, full hollow grinds, some in between grinds as well as some old Sheffield blades and also super hard American and Russian steel. It's not bug-free yet but at least I've gotten a lot of really nice shaves out of it.

...oh yeah, if you read that ignore my rant at the end. I figured I was going to get the business about it and got a little walter matthau/ grumpy old men about it I guess.

This has been mainly and exercise in discovery of old ways but it's becoming a real adventure. My final test is to dry shave a small patch on my chin where the hair is most course. I usually try to get a small stroke from all parts of the blade. If it tugs or drags AT ALL or leaves anything behind it goes back to the hones. I wind up with a little bare patch so it would look dumb to skip a day, which I seldom do anyway. Normally I do it at night anyway.

So, I just remembered about this one. I forgot I had this little guy.



It wasn't Dad's. I can't remember where I got it. Not sure what it is either. It seems finer than the soft medium from the set but not as fine as the little white semi translucent stone. It came in a little leather pouch and I think it's a Lansky but the pressed label is hard to see now.
Anyone recognize this one? I want to say hard ark but I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Well I'm not sure If I have a good handle on that referentially. To me all arks seem pretty hard but I think this one seems fairly soft compared to most of them that I'm familiar with at least which doesn't say a whole lot. It seems on the course side though. I smoothed the one side, I wouldn't quite call it burnishing, with a diamond plate (also my dad's) and leveled the other side with my silicon carbide Norton flattening stone. It left it fairly rough so I have a course side, a medium side and polished side. Oh, and to further answer your question Lou, I also have this from my dad.
Attachment 321502

This great big old toe breaker is what Dad used for razors (he owned a sharpening business) albeit not much that I remeber. That's the "cinder block sized" double sided stone I was talking about earlier. I'd really like to figure this one out. It has some kind of mineral which is blue greenish on the one side. It's probably silicon carbide although it could be diamond, I have no idea, and the other side is soft and porous. If you spray WD-40 on it the soft side soaks it up like a sponge and the hard side lets it pool and it never will soak in.

I remember seeing that stone sometime ago in another post. I pits a behemoth of a stone. I’m about. An hour away. We will have to meet one day. The first stone in picture is most likely a soft ark but would,have to hone on to confirm.