Thread: Questions about dans hard Arkansas

I found online a dans hard Arkansas hone and purchased it. Now I am curious if I will need to lap the hone (of so with what? I do not have a dmt) and I was also wondering if I need to use water or lather on the stone. Also if these stones are usually fast or slow cutters. My razors were honed by Lynn and have become dull enough that shaving is uncomfortable. I am just looking for a touch up. Any help is appreciated. Thanks guys. Brandon

Arkansas are not generally the best choice for razor honing. I know people who use them and are satisfied, but I don't think it's the best choice. They are slow cutters and oilstones, but they can also be used with water or lather. For lapping, sandpaper. Even if it doesn't look like it needs, a 1k sandpaper will help. If the scratches are deep, a lower grit sandpaper. And, lapping an Arkansas needs time.

Is it a hard or hard translucent?

A hard translucent should be an excellent finisher. A true hard, well, it'll depend and you'll have to find out. The dans translucents that sierra trading post sold last year for $45 are some of the finest arkansas stones I've seen of any vintage. They were seconds in 2x8 size.

The thing you have to realize with a truly fine arkansas is, well, two things:
1) the surface of the stone needs to be broken in. The particles aren't that small, but they are affixed tightly in the stone and will dull easily (they are silica, like many other naturals and will dull quickly. (the dan's stone I had was actually reasonably nice to start ,as if it had been lapped. The normal stones direct off a diamond saw will have a very coarse feel until they're broken in, like a matter of 10 to 1 in coarseness to start vs. where they end up in the long term).
2) once they're broken in, you don't have to be that anal about pressure. For tools, you *need* pressure with them to get good results, unless they've been freshly lapped.

If you lap the stone, lap it one time, clean it off and then never again. You can rub the surface with any hardened steel to break it in. Buy a cheap chisel at home depot or harbor freight if you want and just lean on it and lap the stone surface with it. Clean the surface and then experiment with oils, going from water, to water with soap, then Wd 40 or kerosene (yes, the old timers use kerosene, some even left their vitrified stones soaking in kerosene), and if you're still not getting what you want out of a clean stone on wd40, try baby oil.

Once you use oil, the days of using lather are over.

I just had a very lovely shave this morning off of a stone that's marketed as a black translucent.

If its labeled "dans". Then it should be lapped pretty good. But he is not marketing them for straights, they are more for knives which don't require absolute flatness. They use the big 32 inch lappers to lap a bunch at once.(I actually own one of his old lappers) For a a razor you would want to spend some individual time on it... Just cross hatch it up with a sharpie, and lap with sandpaper... For a long time, after the lines are gone keep going with finer and finer sandpaper.

I assume thus is a translucent? Or Hard Black?

Also everything DaveW said.........spot on...

I appreciate the info guys. I can't wait to get my stone in this week. I will follow this advice and see where I end up. This is my first time and hopefully I won't mess up too much. The description just said hard Arkansas stone. I'm not sure beyond that. Should I be looking forward to 100's of Laps to get my razor touched up? I saw a few people say that has been the case for them. I wasn't aware that beig a slow cutter meant a difference between 5-10 to 200??

B

Dan's Hard Arkansas Sharpening Stone 4" x 2" x 1/2" with Box:Amazon:Home Improvement

I added this link. It is a link to the home I am asking about above.

I must tell you that the hard stones are not as fine as the translucent and hard black. You wont be happy with it has a finisher. It will more than likely undo the fine job of honing that Lynn already did.

What we are missing here are a few items such as your experience level with straights and how much reading you have already done on razor upkeep I don't want to insult you by telling you some basic info..

But I did notice you have a linen strop, to be honest I would start a new thread in the stropping sub forum with how to handle keeping your razors shave ready after they were professionally honed, I think there is more going on here and taking them to the stones might not be the answer. Perhaps in a new thread if you could talk about your current strop setup and your technique, the experts can figure out what is going on that would cause the razors to be getting dull. ( just my opinion, but you should be able to go 6+ months or way more with just strops. But I think that conversation is best started fresh.

Happy shaving.

Thanks for the advice. My strop is actually leather and pressed wool. I had accidentally typed linen and later corrected that in the post. My experience level is basic. I have been shaving for five months and have not done any home work. My stropping technique is improving. I was able to keep a decent edge for a while. I got a shave from a barber who told me tht my hair is more corse than usual and he wasn't surprised that my razors were dulling. Of course my stropping will hopefully improve over time as well. Thank you for asking about my experience and reading though. I have tried to read everything I can and hope that it helps haha.

If the finish from your razor is just a notch away from the sharpness you want, there are any number of stones you could buy for about $40 that would step up the sharpness a lot.

You could also check out psa backed sandpaper. You'd probably have to drag the hone stroke instead of leading the edge into it, but it would be just about impossible not to have a very keen edge from sub micron paper if your finish gets all the way to the edge.

Tools for working wood has 5 full size sheets of psa stick down silicon carbide in 0.3 micron size for about $12 + shipping. Each sheet would be enough to make 4 full sized hone size pieces, I can't imagine you'd use more than one or two of those each year once you know what you're doing.

My experience with hard Arkies is that they can range from being rather coarse to as fine as a black Arkie. It is really luck of the draw with them.