Thread: Arkansas

Is it flat?

Ink a grid on the stone face with a sharpie, pencil lead will wash off with slurry. Do 10 laps on 600 grit paper dry, on a flat substrate. MDF is flat-(er), glass and marble & granite tiles are not, unless they have been flattened. Glass is easily flattened.

Once flat running through the grits is relatively quick. Getting to flat is the trick. If not flat, 600 grit paper will not get you there on a Translucent Ark.

It is not a question of time, you must have a quantifiable measurement. It will remove all the ink in 3-5 laps or not.

If the stone is not flat, the lower parts of the stone that are not finished, will come to the surface as the rest of the stone wears and those unsurfaced spot will ruin your pristinely polished bevel and edge.

It is much like a fully bevel set. If you do not have a fully set bevel you can not polish an edge that does not exist. 90 percent of all edge problems stem from bevels that are not fully set. Most of Ark finishing issues are from stones that were never fully flat.

You only need to flatten a finish Ark once.

A stone from Dan's should be dead flat already. I doubt that's your issue.
Arks, especially that fine require a lot of laps. If you have done less than 150-200 I wouldn't expect.to see.much.if.any.difference.

And Dovo’s are shave ready.

Takes a minute to check, or hours of frustration.

It certainly won't hurt to check it but I'd be willing to bet that's not your issue. My usual run on each side of the stone is about 400 to 600 laps.The slowness of an ark is both a good thing and a bad thing. I would be a little bit more patient with the honing process but since it's been put out there you probably won't be able to stop thinking about whether it's flat or not. I've seen barbers use barber homes that are sway-backed as hell and still get a perfectly fine edge on a razor with it.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

It certainly won't hurt to check it but I'd be willing to bet that's not your issue. My usual run on each side of the stone is about 400 to 600 laps.The slowness of an ark is both a good thing and a bad thing. I would be a little bit more patient with the honing process but since it's been put out there you probably won't be able to stop thinking about whether it's flat or not. I've seen barbers use barber homes that are sway-backed as hell and still get a perfectly fine edge on a razor with it.

I'll take that bet!
I've had more than one that was far from flat, the last a privative from Dan's was way out. Took quite a bit of work to remedy.
I never new just how uneven and (not flat) my stones were until I acquired a Starrett brand straight edge.
Things got better after that.

There are as many answers to your question as there are users.
I would expect the stone to be flat but I would check both sides anyway. I leave one side of my stone as it came from the factory when it starts to get shiny I lap it with 220 grit until my arm gets tired, very scientific. The other side I lap up to 1 K then use it.
When I sharpen a razor I start on the factory side and hone until the razor starts to stick then on to the the other side. This is done with honing oil. Then I do the same thing using WD-40. Today I finished a razor and it took over 100 strokes on the smooth side, with WD-40 to start sticking. It takes a fair amount of sharpening before you start to get proficient. But you will get good edges as you progress, they only get better.

Hey, don't take my word for it. What do I know? My bet is still on not enough laps.

I think you're all right actually, I didn't check to see if the stone was flat, I just assumed so I will check.

I didn't spend enough time dressing the smooth side, I went straight to 600 wet n dry for 5 minutes and done. I could only feel the smooth side by licking it to know which side to use. I only used beard trimmer oil (100% mineral oil) because it's all I had to hand immediately.

I felt no sticking at any point, I think from Boz that sticking is a good indicator of razor done and the oil need to lighten up to finish. Correct me if I misunderstood.

And you are right about laps Paul, I slowly did about 100 assorted strokes which took a long time because I found that using a two inch stone took a lot of concentration to keep the blade flat. I will do a lot more and hopefully a bit faster with practice.

I didn't expect great things without a steep learning curve and to honest, I would have been disappointed if had proved easy.

It is not a question of how flat the stone is, as said these Arks are supposedly finished at 120 grit, and if they are not finished flat, pockets will be finished to a much lower grit probably the grit of the cutting implement.

As you hone on the stone, (for years), any pocket that has not been smoothed to at least 600 grit will surface, as the stone wears. Those pockets will finish at what ever grit it was surfaced at. The rest of the stone is 600 or higher, then you hit a 120 grit or lower pocket and just trashed your edge.

Not surprising that the stone is not performing, a 120 to 600 grit is a large jump for an Ark finisher. Old stones that are concave have been smoothed from years of use and finished to the same level/degree, so flatness is not an issue. This stone has never been finished.

Add to that, the quality of the edge prior to going on the Ark will have a great influence on the quality of the edge an Ark can improve. If you do not get the stone flat or remove all the deep grit stria in the stone, from too large a grit jump, the stone may never live up to its potential.

Check the stone by marking a grid with a sharpie, then lapping the stone on 600 grit paper on a known flat surface, a piece of glass flattened, (glass is not flat) any granite or marble tile you have been lapping on, is not flat.

If you cannot remove all the sharpie grid in less than 10 laps, the stone is not flat. A straight edge can give you an idea of flatness, or a dial indicator, but that is a lot of work to check every millimeter of a stone.

Just grid it with sharpie and see what comes off with 600 paper on MDF dry. Once flat you can run up and down a progression fairly easily and quickly. Use loose grit to 500 then wet and dry.

Getting to flat is the trick. It is really not about flatness but smooth and uniform, lapping it flat will get it smooth and uniform.

Fair enough. So flatten the stone. Even if it's not an issue it's not going to hurt anything And at least then you know and can check that off your list. Besides it's probably pretty good practice anyway. Still, don't forget that it takes time on those fine Arkansas stones and you can't expect to see a huge difference in 50 to 100 strokes necessarily. You have to have a pretty good edge already to refine it very much in that many strokes