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Aside all the other comments, Lily White is basically the "premium" level stone. If you can get one of those, get it. They are very nice stones. There definitely is some range of hard/soft and...

It will be difficult to make generalities about these stones via personal experience, as none of us has had exposure to a significant number of stones compared to the number that were produced. My...

Not sure. The grade of HSS was T15 so they may have been tungsten carbides. Although there are probably more than one type present in a lot of steels since they're almost always alloyed with a lot of...

I put up a series of photographs (micrographs) at another site that plainly show the carbides in a HSS blade I made, (they looked to be about 4-5 microns in diameter on this particular blade) and the...

I never really thought much of it either until hitting some of the harder steels with carbides. The razor I made recently was from T15 HSS, so should have been tungsten carbides - hardness was...

Oh they can still put in a little work, but if you try removing much steel you'll be there a very long time without a whole lot of progress. A modern synth will absolutely destroy a natural stone for...

I have had that experience also. Especially with some of the very hard or carbide containing steels that the Silica in these stones isn't much of a match for.

I would agree with that for the most part, but in my experience the Washitas definitely cut faster than even soft Arks. It's not that they necessarily produce a coarser finish though. Since the Lily...

Sure, as I recall, the Woodworkers Delight, Mechanics Friend, Rosy Red etc. were all equivalent to #1 Washita, so on the finer end of the scale.

There are many here who use Washita stones, I...

There are slight differences between Washitas just like there are between the different main Arkansas stones. There used to be a range of about 6 densities of Washitas IIRC from reading many old...