Thread: Black Ark???

A friend of mine works for an auction company and gave me the "in" on a lot of razors and hones. Picked up several great razors and a couple hones. One was a barber's hone. The other was this guy...didn't get pics of original condition...it looked like someone had bread-knifed all over the thing. So I lapped it and tried it out with a clunker razor.

In lapping it gave off a brownish gray wash, but in honing it gave off a dark gray wash, and not much of it. Really, it may have been the razor more than it was the stone. It was SUPER slow. It lapped fairly quickly so I figured it was soft and would maybe work as a bevel setter. After honing and honing it's clearly a hard smooth stone. There's nearly a mirror finish on it now compared to when it was freshly lapped.

I have no experience with naturals, so I really don't know what this is, but wondered if it might be a Black Arkansas?

It's about 1" x 6", sitting on a Norton 8k. Definitely feels smoother than the 8k.



Thanks for any input!

Peace,
Jim

Thats definately not a black arkie. Looks more like a thuringian then anything. Looks like somebody sealed the side and bottom of stone with shellac or something similar.

I read a couple other threads that indicated thuri, but A) I wouldn't think I'd get so lucky, B) I thought thuri's put off a milky wash, this is so far a dark gray.

The top has been lapped. It has a chip at one corner, and low corners at the other end. The bottom was only partly lapped, and looks weird as a result, but I got into it, and had already lapped the barber's hone I got and thought "Why am I doing this? I only need to lap one side." So i don't know if that's the shellac look/idea you're getting, or if something else is give you that impression. I just figured it was age and dirt.

I can see cut marks all along the sides/ends. They are relatively straight up and down as I would expect from a band saw. I would be stoked if this turned out to be a thuri with everything I've heard about them.

Any tests or ideas to determine what it is? Ultimately if it hones well it doesn't matter. But a guy always likes to know his tools.

Peace,
Jim

To me, that looks just like a yg thuringian stone.

Enjoy!

Ditto to all the above. Thury. Nice score!

I'm with the rest, looks like a Y/G Thuri to me also. However, about a black Arkansas.....it doesn't look like one, they are very dark grey to black, but if you had a black Arkansas, you'd probably still be lapping. I have an 8x3" and I've lapped at it (until my arm got tired) with a DMT 8c 325 three times and still the corners need more. I won't say it's hard, no, it's really really hard. Many, including me, use it to burnish Jnats. It's a very hard dense stone and not given to any slurry easily.

Anyway, nice find, Congrats!!

Regards,

Howard

I'm with the rest, Thuringen!
Can we get some pics of the slurry?

I am in with Thuri but would say not Y/G. More towards grey.

Here's a series of pics resting atop a Norton 4K to maybe give a different color perspective (the 4K's white, whereas the earlier pictures were on an 8K which is yellow).

Dry,



Wet,



With slurry,



Thank you for your input guys. I think I'll hone one up on this and see how it works for today's shave.

Peace,
Jim

Looks great Jim, you got yourself a thuri! Enjoy!