Thread: arkansas stone (surgical)

hi guys,

so it's been about 8 mos since i started using a straight razor, and the shaves have never been better. i'm now comfortable enough to move on to honing stones, and thought i'd ask you all for your opinions.

i've already been burned once using a diamond hone that was too coarse. fortunately, lynn rehoned my razor and got me back in the game. i've read through the wiki and there's an amazing array of hones to choose from. i'm looking at a razor to maintain a sharp edge (definitely no major restorations, chip removals, etc). to that effect, i'm looking at either surgical grade arkansas stones or norton 4000/8000 stones. anyone have experience with these for the level of honing i'm interested in?

v/r,

doc awk.

I don't have any personal experience with the black surgical. Messed with Arkansas stones on knives but never razors. From what I've read on the forums some few do use arks to hone razors but it is slow going. I believe I read that a black surgical is in the 6 to 8k range ?

If that is correct I would say the norton 4/8 would be a better option to have to maintain straight razors. If you're only touching up a shave ready razor perhaps a barber hone might even be more useful but I would still vote for the norton. Just IMHO.

+1 on what Jimmy said. For the price of the Norton, you have a mid range stone and a finer and faster finisher. You would end up with a better edge faster, and be able to do a wider range of honing.

i'm one of the one's that use's ark to hone soft then translucent ark then finisn with a coti i would go with the norton 4k/8k its the best bang for your money using and ark to finish on is around 200 lap count with a light touch and thats on a translucent ark which is as fine as the black but a rarer stone

Arkansas hones are really slow hones. Norton 4/8 followed by chrom. oxide pasted strop is all you need.

I used a transluscent Ark (after ignorantly destroying a DMT8C trying to lap it). I used oil, and used the Ark after the c12k. It gave a very very respectable edge. 'On the sharp side of smooth. Lap counts were in the hundreds. A good Ark isn't cheap, and I think there are better and certainly more cost and time effective methods. I won't put the Ark down. It does the job. 'Just a big time commitment.

Well, I'm using now a hard Arkansas as my last finisher after the Coti and Thuringian.
I know, most of the members are using now exotic Jnats and Shaptons, but how did I came to use an Arkansas stone?
A few month ago I bought two NOS swedish Eskilstuna's "Heljestrand" and "REX" rasors from this online shop:Barbershop Classics The Shaving Shop
It's an amazing shop...
When I started to shave with them straight from the box (leathered of course..) I noticed something that I never experienced before with my razors: they were very sharp with excellent 'bite', but in the same time extremely smooth. It was not the smoothness I experienced before with the Coti, nor the sharpness of the diamond paste... I could finish my shave very quickly with BBS sensation.
Curiously I made a call and got he owner of the shop and he explained that his father and great father as well himself were barbers and they only used an Arkansas stones as a finisher. The only thing that you have to do is honing the razor for some 5 minutes on the Arkansas stone and then on the leather strop.
I bought an hard Arkansas in his shop and could duplicate the results on all my other razors. Even razors that didn't shave all to well before became now excellent shavers!
This is a proof that they knew in ancient times how the hone and get excellent results with simple means.

Like everyone is saying, they are very slow cutters. I have a transluscent and a black surgical. The surgical is only 50% lapped and I gave up on it.

If I knew then what I know now, I would stick with Norton and/or Naniwa stones to get started. JMO after many years of successes/failures.

Kingreverent
I'm with you arkansas stones rock i used my first one when i was a butchers apprentice and could not believe the difference it made and of course everyone wanted to use it after they saw how good it was and it's been the same everywhere i've worked the first stone i used was just the soft one and i dropped it a couple of years later so i bought a soft a hard and a surgical black to replace it yes they take time to sharpen because they polish the edge instead of grinding the steel away but they are worth the effort my knives and razors have been popping hairs for years now with virtually no hone wear

I just got the three Arks today... And I spent a little over an hour each on 2 razors today with phenomenal results. I used water instead of oil and it was nice and smooth going. After using the soft for about 100 laps, then the hard for 150, and the Surgical Black one took 200 the other took 150 went back to the hard for 50 and back to the black for another 150. All the while re-wetting the stones every 20 laps. I then did a set of strops, green chromium oxide, then straight linen, then the leather. It took time, but when I ran it along the top of my arm hairs they were just shooting off.

I also pulled a couple hairs out of my head and they popped via the HHT. I had better results on what I did, than the professional that sharpened two of my razors last week on the Nortens, a Belgian stone, and a 10000 Coticule. It did take a lot of time for me though. And I re-finished the ones I got from him on the Black - 100 laps each, and they are just as good. This is SOOOOO different than sharpening my old hunting knives. So rewarding to see those hairs pop... Gonna shave with one of mine in the morning, that is the test it really has to pass, wish me luck!