Thread: Smith's Soft Arkansas stone

Hi, all,

I just found a really nice Smith's Soft Arkansas stone in an antique shop for $6, so I couldn't pass it up. Has anyone ever used one of these for honing? Would a stone like this need to be soaked in water before use?

Many thanks,

Larry

Nice stone. I had a set of those back in the 1970s and used them for sharpening pocket knives. It is an oil stone not a water stone. A bit slow and maybe coarse for razors on anything but bevel setting and slow for that as well IMO.

Thanks, Jimmy. I appreciate the info. The stone is in as-new shape, so I couldn't pass it up. At least my pocket knives will be sharp!

Thanks,

Larry

I think Jimmy is being nice. Maybe you could knap it into a nice spear head.

I have one of the Smith's Tri-Hone sharpeners with the carbide, soft and hard arkansas stones. They can be used with oil, water or even dry. No soaking needed, just wet the stone before starting, and add water to maintain a thin layer on it's surface.

Like Jimmy said, the soft arkansas stone will work, but is indeed pretty slow.

Just to prove to myself that it could be done, I used a Smith's pocket soft arkansas pocket stone that I got for about $6 at Lowes. I followed it with a cotton canvas and then the leather strop. It worked, but took some time. And it helped me to appreciate man-made stones!

A aosl have a smith's tri-hone, as well as several other Arkansas stones. The soft Arkansas is to coarse for razor use. I consider it a meduim hone and use mine to get nicks out of kitchen knives or to put a working edge on a knife for camp or rough use. I use the hard white to finish kitchen or pocket knives and to sharpen plane irons. I go further to finish plane irons or start a razor. You could use a hard white as a starting poin with a razor but I wouldn't finish with one. A soft Arkansas wouldn't touch my razors it would only be fine enough for bevel setting or chip removal but really to slow a cutter to bother with in either task. I someday hope to have a translucent Arkansas to try as a razor finisher but it is way down there on hones I would like to have so it could be a while.

M. Parker used to hone with Arkansas stones and got good edges so that where I got my knowledge of them relating to razors from.

All the Arkansas stones are considered oil stones. The finer ones work fine with water but a soft Arkansas would be best with a light machine oil like gun or sewing machine oil, actual honing oil if you have it is perfect obviously. The oil (or liquid) serves to float the metal particles out of the cutting edges of the stone so they should never be used dry to avoid clogging. You really don't want to clog the stone as then you will have to clean it and possibly lap it, and these things are a bear to lap. Fortunatly they remain true for a very very long time when compared to water stones so lapping is a once in a blue moon thing as long as you treat them right.

As you can probably tell I'm a huge fan of the Arkansas stones, and all oil stones for that matter, I just haven't found them easy or ideal when it comes to razors.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

M. Parker used to hone with Arkansas stones and got good edges so that where I got my knowledge of them relating to razors from.

Another senior member who posted on using the Arks on razors was Russel Baldridge. He also commented that you could do it but it was very slow going and waterstones are a better alternative for straight razors. I like to set a bevel on a pocket knife with a flat file initially and clean it up with a Washita and then go to the soft white followed by the hard white if I'm that ambitious. They are beautiful stones for pocket knives.