Thread: washita

yeah, it doesn't smell so nice.

I'll lap it and see how it goes!

Thanks for all the guidance, everybody! I can't wait to actually use this thing.

Oh , I think you'll love that stone. I love the feel of the blade sweeping over an ark, moreso than any other stone. It has a great feel and sound to it especially on the old dense ones. I'm really excited for you man! Can't wait to hear more about your results.

I lapped one side flat last night, it took almost two hours. I’m not sure I’ll get around to flattening the other side, we’ll see.

Question: how high up the grits should I go with this stone? With my surgical black I did 600 on one side and 1000 on the other. But I doubt I need to go so high for the washita, since I’m planning on using it more like a coarse or midrange stone.

Try it, once it is flat at 60 grit.

Once flat you can quickly run up the grits up to 500, but if you want aggression 60 might do it for you.

Sharpen a couple kitchen knives and see what you get.

Each stone is a little different but I have a couple that I treat sort of differently. One I lap it on SIC, I think what I have is about 60 or 80, I don't remember but it's fairly low, and the other side I took to the wet and dry up to I think 320. Once it gets burnished some I'll run it back over the wet and dry so I've done it a couple of different ways. The other I went to the wet/dry on both sides, one I think up to maybe 800. That way I have a range where I can get from bevel set up through the mid-range by flipping the stone over and adjusting the amount of pressure on the blade then do the same on the next stone up. You just have to play around with it and see what it will do. The one I left rougher has a rougher nature to it than the one I took up the grits more. After you've used it some it won't take very long to figure out what the stone is and what it will do.

I just lapped the stone to 90x, to see what it would be like. I found a neglected knife at my parent's place (a Henckels stainless steel santoku), and tried it out on the washita. The knife was extremely dull, with no remaining bevel, and some rust along the edge. After a few minutes on the stone, just using water, there was some swarf beginning to build up. I checked the edge, and a new bevel was beginning to form, but I could tell it would take way too long to correct the edge just with the washita. Anyways, the edge was nice and polished looking, so I got the impression that it would be a very nice mid-range razor stone, and/or a good knife finisher.

I took the knife home with me, and a couple days later I corrected the edge on my DMT 325 and sharpened it first on my 400 then my 1000 grit Naniwas so that it was cutting nicely. I used for a day to make sure the edge was ok (there were a couple of deep chips that will come out in one or two more sharpenings, but it cut well still). The next day I used the washita to finish the edge. The result was very nice, a very mirror-like bevel, and the knife cut very well.

I'll sharpen a couple more kitchen knives on the washita in order to burnish it some more, but I already like this stone a lot. I will eventually flatten the other side and soak it to get rid of more oil buildup, but it's useable as is.