Thread: Ebay Natural Mystery Hone finer and faster than Swaty

it must be arkansas
oh well
never mind

Something I've discovered concerning novaculite (Arkansas etc.) it that when put to a grind stone or abrasive belt, they will consistantly produce sparks. Not great big sparks such as when grinding a chisel but fine small sparks. This is of course a destructive test but you don't loose much. Arkansas stone is so hard on other abrasives, I've found they will quickly dress my grinding stone/abrasive wheels.

Looks alot like my unknown hone, Arkansas or Wachita (SP) stone. Mine was black from solidified oils, an hour of lapping with a 125 DMT plate got me this far

Good Lord, what in heavens name are they?

Originally Posted by DwarvenChef

Looks alot like my unknown hone, Arkansas or Wachita (SP) stone. Mine was black from solidified oils, an hour of lapping with a 125 DMT plate got me this far

THE MAN!!

I went and looked up Wachita and found pics very close to what I have.
MUCH closer than any Arkansas stone pic I found

maybe different names for the same thing but probably a regional thing
no time to look it up now though

DC
try putting that stone on top of a rag in a pan
add water to cover
add some soap
bake @ 350 for one hour (or until clean)

give it a try

I don't know what the difference is between an Arkansas hone and a Washiła hone, although I do know that the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas have yielded hones

Washıta indeed comes from these mountains. Washıta and Arkansas are both novaculite stones, but distinct in character. Arkansas-type hones used to be devided into (from soft, coarse, unevenly coloured and expensive to hard, fine, uniformly coloured and more expensive) Washıta, soft Arkansas, hard Arkansas, black hard (or: surgical) Arkansas and translucent Arkansas (the latter two sometimes in reversed order) and within these divisions sometimes marketed according to colour (eg lily white Washıta).

See eg. The handyman's Book by Nooncree Hasluck p123 (Google book here), or Leonard Lee's Complete Guide to Sharpening p31 (with nice SEM illustrations of the particles)(Google book here). Recently someone posted a link to a very nice table showing classification, grit, density, colours. This is the link, but to my regret I can't remember who posted it or were (I just quickly bookmarked it to read later) - sorry for that!

Some members seem to have expert knowledge on these American hones and lots of information can be found in old threads. Most I know about them is directly or indirectly from this forum or one of the woodworker ones. I don't 'do' American natural hones - one has to impose some objective limit to control NHAD - though the recent interest in them hereabouts, and the beautiful pictures like in this thread are slowly massaging me towards reconsideration...

Too late maybe but the stone in the first post is a Hindostan/India stone.

Since I have 2 that look the same I will say it is a hard Arkansas. The reason that it cuts fast is because you lapped it with the 100 grit silicon carbide which has created sharp edges on the quartz crystals. With use the rate of cutting will get slower and slower as the edges on the quartz crystals get rounded over.

Just my $.02