Thread: Hone of the Day

I am a BIG WD fan. Buy it by the case!
Is there a progression of Arks? Seems there are a lot of finishers which can redefine sharp.
I see the black ones too?

Funny, as a synthetic user for the most part, I flush and lap away the black swarf.
Ark guys want to embed it into the hone! Neat!

I suppose they don't need lapping very often?

Originally Posted by sharptonn

I am a BIG WD fan. Buy it by the case!
Is there a progression of Arks? Seems there are a lot of finishers which can redefine sharp.
I see the black ones too?

You said it Arks are a progression including a finisher.

There are softer Arks that are used for lower grit work. I've never had or used them. Someone else will surely come along with insight on those. The surgical blacks also have a rep for being great finishers. Some say better than the Trans stones.

You can use an all Washita/Arkansas progression. You will see many of my posts here on Hone of the Day where I do exactly that with great results. That being said, an all ark progression is a lesson in patience and skill as they can be a “moving target” much like using slurry on a Coticule and trying to dilute it just right. A lot of variables so I recommend starting with a translucent or black or other true hard Arkansas as a finisher first. They are not so hard that way and pretty easy to get amazing results. If you are bored or love challenges then move on to an all Arkansas progression. IMO it is the hardest system to learn but once mastered EVERYTHING ELSE is a piece of cake.

Oh well! Today's victims.

A NOS Kikuboshi was surprisingly dull out of the box. A fine Escher finish for it shall do well.

The old Wolfertz from Allentown, PA will get this old Lauterjung hone after 8k. Just to satisfy my curiosity!

Looks like a fun day for you, Tom. Atta Boy!

A pretty razor on a pretty rock

I put the new Hohenzollern stone to work last night and touched up a Rudolf Schmidt Bambola 192 for this mornings shave. The edge was EXCELLENT! Keen and incredibly comfortable. Every bit as good as an Escher. I need to do some more testing with it to see exactly how good it can be, but if this is any indication it will be a great stone.

Ken-I totally get what you are saying: going from one side (the unburnished side) of an ark to your glassy burnished side, and then progressing from dry to WD-40 or a similar lube with varying degrees of pressure is, when you think about it, very much a progression that it would take a couple of other kinds of synthetic or natural stones to handle.

It's kind of like a JNAT with a 3 or 4-nagura progression to a tomo and, maybe (depending on your stone and skills) finishing on plain water. That's a lot of fun, too, but at least in my limited experience, more complicated and time-consuming.

There are many roads to sharp.

I rarely get to put my own razors over stones, but today was different these pair of 14s haven't seen a hone for a while and I have noticed a drop off in smoothness while using these two, so an 8K, 12K 20K refresh was the order of the day.