Printable View
Ebay is an evil place! I've bought a stone. It was advertised as Belgian coticule. I should have paid more attention to the pictures probably. Although my experience is rather limited I am quite sure this stone is not a coticule. Definitely and old stone: it came in a wooden box held together with wooden pegs. It is fine to the touch and it is glossy. Light shines through it. Is it a translucent Arkansas maybe?
Attachment 324577
Attachment 324578
Attachment 324579
Attachment 324580
Yeah, it looks like a trans Ark that’s been used with the red honing oil which IIRc was automatic transmission fluid.
Thanks! I'd better start reading about Arks then, as I don't know anything about them.
Should I do something special with it or just start testing it?
Give it a good scrubbin, then let it soak in degreaser for awhile.
Attachment 324581
Attachment 324582
This can take up to several weeks, to get them clean
It is not oily to the touch and it doesn't smell of oil either. I'll give it a scrub.
Yup, looks like, put it under hot water for a couple minutes to warm it up, then spray with oven cleaner and let sit for a bit, scrub and rinse. That will get most of the surface rust off.
Then soak in 50 percent water and any good degreaser, 409, Simple Green or Awsome is what is available in the states. The longer you soak the whiter it will get.
But if it does not smell it really does not matter what color it is. Lots of information on Arks and Translucents. Other that clean it I would try it on a razor before I did anything to the stone face. Chances are it has been burnished to a fine finishing face from years of use, and it would take you a long while to reproduce that should you lap or sand it.
WD40 will clean up the box.
Nice find a vintage stone, well prepped can produce a fine edge.
Nice find! That stone will refine pretty much any coti, so it is not as bad as you think. Just clean it up with Oven cleaner in a thick plastic bag. Then rinse with some non-toxic degreaser. The plastic bag is so the oven cleaner does not dry up and keeps it working loner. Just spray oven cleaner all over the stone and place in bag and put outside in a shaded area. After a at least a hour take out and spay with the non-toxic degreaser and repeat I would say two more times for your stone.
Then lap your stone flat and prep one side to 600 sic and the other 1000. That should get you to a great finisher. It does not look to be to much work. Nice stone!
Thanks for the advice!
Time for me to go shopping and see what oven cleaners and degreasers the UK supermarkets have to offer.
It never crossed my mind to use wd40 to clean the case. I was thinking about sanding it. Will give it a go with wd40.
LE: what is 600 sic?
Silicon carbide.
Thanks!
I cleaned the stone with oven cleaner. It took about 30 seconds and it was clean. I scrubbed some more, but that was it. I then soaked it in degreaser and left it there for a while. Nothing happened. The degreaser was just clean.
This is the result:
Attachment 324608
After reading about arks I've decided to leave it as is and try it with a razor. I contacted the seller and he doesn't know what stone it is. He only knows that it is an old stone and that it has been used to hone razors.
My Thomas Turner razor needs a refresh and I think it is a good candidate to test the stone.
Anything else I should know before I start?
That looks just like my new Translucent ArkQuote:
Originally Posted by Eurofighter
That is a VERY nice trans ark! There are a lot of posts recently about prepping ark surfaces and using them that I'm sure you'll be reading. They can produce a very fine, precise shaving edge if you do your part on an already "finished" 8 to 12k shaving edge. I like diluted shaving lather on my butter-scotch trans, but it will likely work well with other lubes, oils, etc. Let us know how it goes.
Normally, a translucent Arkansas is used with honing oil and that is how I use them. They are considered to be fairly slow and a stray stroke on their very hard surface can result in deflection. For this reason, I like to use half-laps (back-and-forth strokes) leading to edge-leading X-passes at the end. Looks like a nice one. Is it flat?
I've tried it today. The stone "seems" flat. I ușed wd40 as lubricant as that is the only thing I have around.
I've done about 200 back and forth passes and black swarf started showing up. I belive that to be a good sign. I switched to edge leadind passes and then stropped it. The razor does not pass hht. Should I continue?
Attachment 324665
I did about 200 laps on mine too and it was very disppointing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eurofighter
I was told to do a lot more, 500 made a world of difference for me.
Of course the razor was already sharp so I was finishing, I don't think anyone told me that i could set a bevel on a trans.
I might be wrong but I think that if you are concerned that your razor isn't sharp enough, a trans probably won't help.
Yeah, make sure you've got a shave-ready edge before you start on it. Maybe take one from your 8-12k range that could use some refining and smoothing out. WD-40 is a fine lube, and is what I use on my other Arks most of the time. Instead of more laps, a fine trans or true hard/surgical black Ark should let you experiment with more torque on the edge if you have a thicker grind that can take the extra pressure.
Or try this:
1. 50 or so laps back and forth Japanese-style with some pressure on plain water until it starts to stick all along the edge.
2. Do the same, but with a drop of dish soap for a little extra glide. Again, stop when you feel start to feel stiction all along the edge. Start lightening the torque gradually.
3. Wash and dry the stone, and do 50 or so more with your WD-40, again with some torque, and finish with full, smooth light x-strokes.
Strop and try the shave. I have gotten excellent results with this "thin to thick" experiment. I've heard here of equally excellent results doing the opposite order. As with all naturals, just time on the hone experimenting with variables and "listening" with your fingers to your blade on the stone will teach you what the stone is capable of. I am convinced that despite years of playing around with Arks as finishers, I still haven't wrung the final microscopic little bit of improvement out of my Arks yet, but I enjoy the hunt for the ultimate edge. I find Arks endlessly fascinating!
I need to give a bit of background information:
I spend my life between home and work, two weeks at a time. All my stones are at home. I wanted to have one finishing stone at the place I live when I am at work so I can maintain my razors. That is why I bought the "coticule". I shaved with this razor until it wasn't smooth anymore and needed a refresh. And that is what I have tried today.
I did continue with the honing and the edge improved. I still need to shave with it.
The razor is not ideal - it is warped and the edge is V shaped. I should fix that.
never brought back a dead edge with an ark before but I have never tried. I don't count my laps but on my 8"x2" trans ark I usually spend 3 or 4 minutes before I am done. However, that edge is already a shave ready coticule/jnat edge. Could stick with arks and get a hard ark to refresh before going to the trans but might be faster to use a coticule/synthetic before the trans
Do you have magnification?
Was this razor shaving, prior to putting it on the stone?
Wipe the stone, clean with a degreaser. With the stone dry, ink the bevels on the razor. Now do one lap on each side and see what contact you are making on the stone. If you do not clean the stone, the oil will wipe the ink.
If you are not making full contact on the bevel to the edge, you will need to fully set the bevel, and put an 8k edge.
First find out if you are honing to the edge with that razor and stone. The stone does not need to be flat, it must be smooth. Now a freshly cut new Ark stone, must be lapped flat and smooth.
I maintained a razor for 10 years with just a small Translucent Ark and a strop.
That's just about exactly how I do it. As Steve said 200 is probably not enough. I also do not count laps really. The only time I count laps is if I'm bevel setting with a coarser stone but you won't be doing that with this stone anyway unless you want to quit your job and spend your entire life honing. Going from bevel set to finish It's not unusual at all to do a thousand strokes or more. If you count the down and back half lap as two strokes then maybe even more. That thing will produce a beautiful shaving edge at finish used correctly. Also, for that stone I usually either use WD-40 or oil thinned with WD-40 at first and then WD-40 toward the end. Although I do sometimes go to soapy water at the very end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brontosaurus
Ok, I read your last post.
What do you mean a V shape edge, how badly warped is the razor? How is the other side?
You might try the other side of the stone, if it is smooth it may be more aggressive if unused and you can use the two sides as a progression. I recommend lapping one side up 600 and burnish the other as fine as possible.
If you are going to lap one side, lap the bottom. When you use the 600 side, use more pressure and finish on the burnished side with lite pressure.
Ink on a dry stone will show you where you are making contact. Were you able to get a good shaving edge with you Coticule? If so a translucent will improve a coticule edge.
By V shape, I mean that the edge is not straight it looks like an open V; the blade does not have a constant width, it is widest about a third of the way from the heel. See picture:
Attachment 324689
There is a possibility that the blade is not warped, but has bad geometry. Because of this, it is tedious work to do lots of passes over an Ark. Not impossible, but time consuming. This particular razor was honed by a friend of mine. It was shave ready. The bevel is set. I just want to refresh the edge, as it doesn't shave like day one anymore.
@Euclid : about the coticule - I'very bought a stone that was advertised as being a coticule, but turned up to be this Ark. The seller has no idea what he was selling.
I had another go today using lather as a lubricant. I can treetop my arm hairs now. I'll probably shave test over the weekend. I do not think the lather was better than the wd40, I'd say that is the extra honing time that made a difference.
Chances are if your sharpie mark the edge, you will find you are not making full contact on that edge, the razor has issues.
It has been honed aggressively and honed on the tang. Additionally, without a stabilizer and hollow ground the blade will flex easily and lift the edge off the hone and grind the back of the bevel. So, the honer added more pressure on the heel and ground the heel half of the edge more than the toe and given you the V edge.
The problems were too much pressure, flexing the bevel and honing on the tang, lifting the heel half of the razor off the stone.
The edge now needs correction, reprofiling. The easiest would be to grind the edge straight, even with the spine. It can be easily done on a Diamond plate or low grit stone. You will lose some blade width, but not that much. It will make the razor much easier to hone.
Take some measurements and mark a straight line from the lowest point from toe to heel, then grind to that line with high angle grinding or bread knifing.
Or draw a line from the toe to the heel and grind to that line, the edge will not be parallel to the spine, but the edge will be straight and easier to hone.
Attachment 324692
I didn't take one of the nice razors to test an unknown stone. I need to work on this razor however.
The shave test wasn't successful. The razor wasn't keen enough, but somehow smooth. I can't even describe it. I need to work some more with he ark.
Smooth is an ark's "je ne sais quoi" that certain undefinable something. I know exactly what you mean. I have been playing with arks a LOT lately, to the point that I put my waterstones away, and even if you don't get it quite "there" in terms of keeness it still feels very smooth. It's perplexing but one of the things that I love about them. Try doing half laps like brontosaurus describes. Half X down and back in sets on one side then switch to the other side. I do sets of 10 then 7, 5, 3,1 then ending in traditional x strokes for about 100 with progressively lighter pressure until it is almost leveiating at the end. I don't really count the sets. I just do a bunch at 10 then less as I go to lower numbers. This speeds the process too because it eliminates a lot of the flipping. I would also try roughing one side and burnishing one side so you can do a small progression. With that stone properly flattened, smoothed and dressed you should be able to refresh and get WOW edges.
That is exactly what I have been doing.
I won't mess with the stone just yet. I'll try a better razor first and work from there.
The only other razor I have with me is a kamisori and I'm tempted to give it a go on the ark.
Okay good then. Didn't mean to hone-splain. :rofl2::roflmao
:rofl2:
I ordered a Belomo 20X loupe. I find it more difficult to use than the 10X one. I'll give it another try tomorrow with better light.
The 20x loupe will have a narrower field of view, a shallower depth of focus, and a closer focal distance, which does make it more difficult to use than lower powers. And wait until that closer focal distance lets you bump the loupe into the edge and you go back to your bevel setter. Don’t ask me how I know this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eurofighter
My favorite, the best balance of wide field of view and good depth of field, is for me the 7x B&L Hastings triplet.
For those wondering which loupe to get, get 3 cheap ones of varying power. They can be had from $5-8. Once you know what power suits you, buy a B&L or Beolomo of the same power. Give the others as gifts to people that you don’t like, lol.
If you have to go cheap, the best cheap one I’ve found so far is the CKTG 20x Illuminated Loupe in the chrome body. I think that it’s more like 12x - 15x and it distorts at the edges like all cheap optics, but it has a large diameter lens and is very usable.
I have a 60x it took a bit of getting the hang of and you are right about banging into the edge with it Steve56, so I'm told LOL.
Off the cuff thought, in order to get where you want to be with a translucent Arkansas stone in anything remotely resembling an acceptable time frame your razor need to be already shaving at the 8K level. From an 8K hone I do somewhere between 100 and 200 laps to finish off the blade. If it's not already there, you will be doing passes on that stone for a long, long time.
Another option is to use something to speed up the process a little bit. I have a variety of small rubbing stones for various hones from an 800 grit Naniwa that I cut down, to coticules, Welsh Slates, Jnat nagura, and a PHIG rubbing stone that I use with mine. You mentioned having a coticule? Try using the accompanying rubbing stone (or the coticule itself) to work up some slurry. That will wear down the steel faster and maybe allow you to pull the bevel together without spending 20 hours doing laps on a finishing stone. And you can dilute the slurry as you work it to get a finer polish on the edge.
