Thread: Pink Arkansas translucent stone

has anyone seen this?

I have seen a picture of it on another forum. I was from reputable member there. However I can not find that link now. Will try more.

mparker has one. I saw one on ebay a few years ago.

Lets hope he will put up picture of it. That will be great. i heart they are the best Arkansas better then black surgical arkansas

It should be this one. Unfortunately I do not know where it finished as the owner recently has passed away and therefore no more pics are available.

All arkansas hones - soft, hard, black, translucent - have abrasives that are roughly the same size. Finer arkansas stones simply have the abrasives packed more tightly with less binder, so the abrasive particles don't get as deep of a "bite" into the steel thus cutting more slowly/finely. Since the abrasive and binder have different densities, how tightly the abrasives are packed can be determined by measuring the density of the entire hone, and this is how arkansas stones are graded nowadays. Within a given grade the color is used to differentiate these stones for marketing purposes but the color doesn't relate to fineness (density). The highest grade of arkansas stone is separated into the black and translucent designations, and there are enough pink translucents that these are sometimes marketed as distinct from the white and grayish translucents. But these black/translucent/pink translucent stones are essentially identical except for the coloration - the pink color is more prized because it is more beautiful. Any difference in performance between the stones is due to the density of the individual stones and not to any attribute related to the color.

However, arkansas stones can come in any variety (and combination) of colors so you can get pink stones even in the lower grades though they won't be translucent (which is due to the very high concentration of quartz abrasives and very little light-blocking binder). I've got a white/red soft arkansas stone (low grade), for example. And my pink has white and mocha swirls in it.

Stone Grades 101

Common Questions

After hearing that before about their specific gravities, I was able to determine that my translucent Ark. is indeed more dense than any of my other natural hones - the C12k, for instance.

Arkansas stones haven't always been graded by density btw which is one reason blacks and translucents are often thought of as being special in some way. And translucency can be used to compare different translucents since denser stones are generally more translucent, but it's not as accurate as density because of variations in the binder's color also affects translucence. So back before density was used to grade them, you could get a more accurate grade on translucent stones than on the black stones, and it was harder for sellers to lie about it since anybody could check how fine their translucent really was by holding it up to the sun, whereas the only way to doublecheck that your black was really a high-grade black and not a low-grade black was to try to hone with it, and convince the seller that the stone was at fault and not your honing skill.

i read about them from this 2 sources. you may need to scroll down or up to find more information

Complete Guide to Sharpening - Google Books



Iron: An illustrated weekly journal ... - Google Books


there is some helpful information may help someone

Do you have one of these in the works Sham?