Thread: A question of feel w/Arkansas hone

Long post warning....

I received a Torrey that I picked up from eBay. Cleaned it up, re-set the bevel and went to honing and noticed something that I wondered if I'm correctly interpreting.

Using what the general consensus is a fine Arkansas whetstone. (Original post here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=16154 )

I'm not sure exactly what it is; it's older than me and it's black but not translucent. Anyway, I just started using it, soaking the stone then keeping water on it as I work. No worries; it seemed to cut slow but evenly when I experimented with it. I had never tried to finish an edge with it so this was the 1st real attempt.

Then the odd thing. As the edge seems to start really dialing in, the blade seems to start to drag initially feeling like there was something sticky on the stone. I decreased pressure to really nothing and still the blade is "grabbing" as I make a pass. I stop and take a closer look to see if I did get something on the blade or stone- nada. I cleaned up the stone as a pre-caution and went back to it, same feel. In my feable mind I'm thinking the edge is uneven or the bevel is not set properly so back to the rough stuff to try again. Work back up to the Arkansas and, after a gozillion passes, same feel. I decided to quit for the evening and test the razor in the AM.

Shaved with it- shaved excellent! So now I'm confused about the odd "feel". As I think about it more, I start to wonder if the grab/drag feel I was getting was actually the edge getting finer and finer, making more contact with the hone....

I took the razor to the hone again, this time instead of using water to lubricate I used lather. The passes on the hone were butter-smooth with consistant drag and good feel. The lather gave me a good visual too on how evenly the edge was tracking the hone. I have not shaved since making some lathered passes (will tomorrow AM) to test it.

Am I correctly interpreting the feed-back I'm getting from the hone? Is the uneven grab/drag I was feeling actually the edge getting more and more even? I have just started using it so this is all new to me. Just wondering.....

Thanks!

v/r

Allen

Yes, that was the bevel getting refined. The unevenness to the stickiness is due to some irregularities in the surface of your stone, which could probably be fixed with some more lapping (the final lapping step on my pink translucent was done with a swaty). Arkansas stones have a great deal of feedback once the edge is nearly there.

I just went back and looked at your pictures, and that looks like a translucent to me - that bluish-grey color is pretty common in translucents. The way to tell if it's a translucent to hold a flashlight behind it, or hold it up to the sun - the light will shine right through. The reason translucents don't look transparent is because the abrasive granules on the surface give it a slight frosted-glass texture - the stones are a lot clearer than you'd guess just looking at them.

I tried the sun-light thing- nada.

I still don't know exactly what it is but it does seem to put a fine edge on a blade.

Hopefully as I learn more with it, I'll continue to improve!

it could be a hard/surgical black. they are generally considered to be equally fine. if it feels glass smooth after breaking it in its probably fine enough for finishing. you might try sanding the stone if its getting caught on a bump or 2. both my translucent and surgical black had little bumps until i smooth them with sand paper and other arkansas hones.