how long to wear in an Arkansas stone?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Especially when touching up an edge, I grab my water stones. For touching up, I got from my 6,000 Shapton to my 16,000 Shapton and then an undressed strop (sometimes). Been using them for years and it looks like I have many years left of use. If I remember correctly, the 6000 seems to be everyone's least favorite Shapton, but it works for me and I have no other reference point....

I cut a bunch of dovetails with some chisels and thought it was time to touch them up, and I decided to use some never before used Arkansas stones.

Not having used them before, I used Medium to Hard to Surgical Black. This was my first serious use of an Arkansas stone, but, at the end, it seemed to immediately raise a rough burr. Normally I knock that back burr off with my strop, not that I can usually see anything significant. Off the Surgical Black, that burr was sufficiently large that it left a line in the leather strop. It totally failed the paper test. I was not able to to handle this lightly enough to not raise this significant burr.

I hit the edge on my 16,000 Shapton and it was immediately ready to go.

Any thoughts on this? I vaguely remember hearing that there is a break-in, but, I had expected the surgical black to be finer than what I am seeing.

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I have another set that also includes a translucent, I just need to find them and I will run some more tests when I have time.

[Jim Koepke]

There was a short period of break in for my Arkansas stones.

My oilstones do not raise as much of a burr as my water stones. My black Arkansas barely raises a burr. Usually my burrs are removed after each stone.

My black and translucent stones tend to polish a bevel more than remove great amounts of metal.

jtk

[Jim Matthews]

Is that your "surgical black" whetstone on the right?

My "hard Arkansas" looks much like it.
The grading of these isn't uniform by all purveyors.


https://www.danswhetstone.com/information/stone-grades-101/

[Jim Koepke]

The grading of these isn't uniform by all purveyors.

For anyone who cares, my three main stones are Dan's Whetstones, a soft, hard and black Arkansas. Lately most of my blades have been worked on these instead of my set of water stones.

My translucent stones are a couple couple of slip or shaped stones from Dan's and a large hunk purchased at a gem & mineral gathering.

A few softer stones were acquired at various hardware stores over the last 50 years. One was labeled as a Washita. That is one that was dropped and is now in two pieces. It still works well. My intention is to someday clean it and see if it can be glued back together.

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Is that your "surgical black" whetstone on the right?

My "hard Arkansas" looks much like it.
The grading of these isn't uniform by all purveyors.


https://www.danswhetstone.com/information/stone-grades-101/

Yes, that is labeled as "black surgical".

[Warren Mickley]

My black Arkansas stone looked like a piece of black glass when it was new in 1976 and it looks like glass today. It is still 1.000 inches thick. Your stone looks awfully rough to me, as if they did not bother polishing it at all. I am skeptical that you can wear it smooth in a reasonable period of work. You would have better luck with a soft Arkansas.

I have seen quite a few planes at hand tool shows that were sharpened with Shaptons; none leave as good a surface as an Arkansas.

[Tom M King]

I don't think my first Black stone (which turned out to be a translucent) could raise a burr if you polished an edge with it all day. Mine is also the same thickness it was to start with, and about the same age as Warren's. I've never done anything to it but used it, and cleaned it a couple of times. My later Black bought only 20 years, or so, ago, is noticeably coarser than my older one.

I don't remember any of mine needing a breaking in period, but it might be from failing memory since it's been a while.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Sounds like I need to do some more serious "testing" to see what is going on with this.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Andrew, like Warren, my black Arkansas is glossier than what you have in the photo, and like Tom my black Arkansas does not raise any burr that I can detect.

My “Hard” Arkansas will quickly raise a fine burr. Not sure about failing the paper test though. What comes off my hard Arkansas is pretty sharp.

[Jim Koepke]

My black Arkansas is also glossier. It takes a bit of work to raise a detectible burr. It is still rather minute and may barely catch on my fingernail.

Off of my black Arkansas the blade will shave arm hair and push/slice through paper.

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The annoying thing is that I have a set of four (medium, hard, surgical, translucent, where surgical and translucent should be the same), but I cannot find them right now. I am blaming my wife and claiming that she moved them. The real reason you get married so you can blame the spouse when you cannot find something. More often than not I am wrong, but, that is my story for the moment. I plain forgot where I put them. Grumble.

Sounds like my "surgical black" may not as it claims and I need to work more before I can test with another sample that I have. Annoys me.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

... but I cannot find them right now. I am blaming my wife and claiming that she moved them.

Wife came home and I asked her.... She said "oh yeah, I moved them and know right where they are. I never would have found them.

My other surgical black and my translucent, which should be equivalent, both raise a burr that is smaller than the other "surgical black", but that could also be how I manipulated. I was also using a wider chisel with my last test and I did not spend a lot of time so there are other possibilities such as maybe I did not fully remove the burr from the previous step. I need to be more precise I think.

Thanks for the input so far.

[Tom M King]

I may need to amend my previous post, which might have been unintentionally misleading. I never feel for a burr, so don't really know if it makes one, or not. I just go by feel of the edge on the stone to know when to stop. That's the main reason I don't like diamond stones-no feel.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I may need to amend my previous post, which might have been unintentionally misleading. I never feel for a burr, so don't really know if it makes one, or not. I just go by feel of the edge on the stone to know when to stop. That's the main reason I don't like diamond stones-no feel.

I am under the impression at this point based on everything everyone has said that the stones that I have are perhaps not as fine as they would suggest, at least they do not perform as such for me. I can say, however, that the translucent certainly is translucent. I ordered a black hard from Dan's, which has a very good reputation and should only be able to polish. After I see how that stone behaves, I think I will have a definitive answer.

Regardless, I think that my other stones are still highly usable, but, I expect that I will only one one Arkansas polishing stone. My existing stones, at least out of the box, are not nearly as nice as my 16,000 water stone, and I expected that they would be.

I first noticed the burr on the back when I dropped it onto a strop and saw that it left striations and I thought "that it not right, I never get that".

[Mike Brady]

I never use my natural stones becaue they simply take too long to work an A-2 bevel. I have good stones ( including a Norton certified translucent ) but I haven't used them in years. Give me a waterstone set or India stones followed by a strop.

Why would a stone need breaking in?

[Warren Mickley]

I never use my natural stones becaue they simply take too long to work an A-2 bevel. I have good stones ( including a Norton certified translucent ) but I haven't used them in years. Give me a waterstone set or India stones followed by a strop.

Why would a stone need breaking in?

Arkansas stones are good at polishing, not so good at sharpening. If you have a sharp edge with scratches from a coarse stone, the Arkansas stone will remove the scratches, but then will not cut very fast once the bevel is polished. A freshly abraded soft Arkansas stone will cut faster than a stone that has some wear on it, but will not give as polished an edge.

I have been to about eight Lie Nielsen events; I have never seen a surface from an A2 iron that is in the same league as what I get with Arkansas stones.

[Robert Hazelwood]

A black/trans finishing stone should have a very smooth glassy feel. If yours does not, I would first check it for flatness. If it's flat, then you should be able to accelerate the break in by working it for a while with the back of a chisel or plane iron. Just try to polish the back using the whole stone until you get bored or tired. If you have an iron with harder carbides in it (A2, V11, etc.), that might work a little faster.

It should settle in most of the way fairly quickly, then gradually get finer with years of use.

With all that said, arkansas stones will tend to form a larger more consistent burr than waterstones in my experience. It's very important to thin the burr with very light alternating strokes on the bevel and back, as the last step on the finishing stone prior to stropping. By touching the edge with my fingertips I can usually tell if I need to do more work on the stones to remove the burr- it gets much sharper-feeling once the burr is gone.

I try to remove the burr completely on the finishing stone. I strop with bare leather afterwards just for good measure.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I never use my natural stones becaue they simply take too long to work an A-2 bevel. I have good stones ( including a Norton certified translucent ) but I haven't used them in years. Give me a waterstone set or India stones followed by a strop.

Why would a stone need breaking in?

I did not know if you needed to break in an Arkansas stone or not; since I have not previously used one. I wanted something that I did not need to worry about flattening (or almost never), not that I need to flatten my water stones that often. I remember hearing (somewhere) that over time an Arkansas stone would cut less aggressively and that you could refresh that with an abrasive. I also assumed that I should NOT be raising such a strong burr from my "Best" translucent or surgical black. I have a black hard on order from Dan's. Sanity check.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Let me start by saying that I really need to do more testing, but, I received my stone from Dan's. They list the following stones:

https://www.danswhetstone.com/product/wide-bench-stones/



Soft - Medium
Hard - Fine
True Hard - Extra Fine (same as Translucent)
Translucent - Extra Fine (Same as True Hard)
Black - Ultra Fine


I have ONE stone from Dan's at this point, and it is the Black, listed as Ultra-Fine, so what they call their smoothing / finest / polishing stone.

If you look at Best Sharpening Stones (https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/arkansas-sharpening-stones),

I pulled numbers from here:

https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/articles/Arkansas-Stones-FAQ

and
https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/articles/arkansas-sharpening-stone-grits

they list the following:



Soft - about 1200 grit or 12 micron
Hard - about 1500 grit or 10 - 11 micron
Black Surgical 2300 - 2500 Grit or 7-7.5 micron
Translucent 3500 - 4000 or 5.5 - 6 micron


I have two of each of these stones except for the Translucent, of which I have only one. My previous testing was done with a single Black Surgical stone. I did not try this with the Translucent, which they list as their finest stone. I only tried the Black Surgical.

So, I have these two sets:

(four stones Soft, hard, black, and translucent)
https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/product_details.php?category_name=Arkansas%20Sharp ening%20Stones&product_id=78

(three stones, soft, hard, and surgical black).
https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/product_details.php?category_name=Arkansas%20Sharp ening%20Stones&product_id=77

Let me start by saying that I was thinking about the surgical black as being the same as the translucent, but, they claim otherwise. In other words, it may not have been a fair test. I now need to go back and test against the translucent, which they list as their finest stone.

I did a quick test using the finest stone offered by Dan's, and, although I did feel the need to strop it afterwards (on a clean leather strop), it did exactly what I expected. When I was doing the testing last night, I was thinking that they considered the surgical black and the translucent as being essentially the same so I did not test it.

I am testing using old Stanley chisels, that I really like.

I cannot bad-mouth the Best stones until I run more tests with them.

I will add that I did like the honing oil from Dan's, it seems to work very well, but, I prefer the smell of the Norton's oil, which is listed as food safe. makes me wonder if it is more than just mineral oil. Looks like mineral oil to me (and Brian Deakin also stated so, back in 2016).

https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/Documents/2938_msds.pdf

I saw that Stewie Simpson claimed that he liked it (back in 2016)

[Andrew Pitonyak]

...
With all that said, arkansas stones will tend to form a larger more consistent burr than waterstones in my experience. It's very important to thin the burr with very light alternating strokes on the bevel and back, as the last step on the finishing stone prior to stropping. By touching the edge with my fingertips I can usually tell if I need to do more work on the stones to remove the burr- it gets much sharper-feeling once the burr is gone.

I try to remove the burr completely on the finishing stone. I strop with bare leather afterwards just for good measure.

Good information, thanks. I am not used to seeing such a persistent burr. I think that part of this process will be me learning how to use the Arkansas stones. For example, it seemed to me like I was even able to pull a burr from Dan's finest stone. It was small, but it was there.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

So given my previous post, I ran a few tests using the Best translucent stone (claimed to be their finest) and Dan's black (their finest). I decided that I needed more time to understand how Arkansas stones work as compared to water stones.

It is my opinion that the Best Translucent stone produced a finer edge than the Best Surgical Black.

I cannot say that Dan's Black (their finest) for certain produces something better then the translucent from Best (bests finest). It is sad to me that the same name means something different for each vendor. Oh well.

After running a few tests I figured out that I was even pulling a very small burr from the finest stones. I also found that I could work that burr on the same stone. Hmmm, who mentioned that?


With all that said, arkansas stones will tend to form a larger more consistent burr than waterstones in my experience. It's very important to thin the burr with very light alternating strokes on the bevel and back, as the last step on the finishing stone prior to stropping. By touching the edge with my fingertips I can usually tell if I need to do more work on the stones to remove the burr- it gets much sharper-feeling once the burr is gone.

I try to remove the burr completely on the finishing stone. I strop with bare leather afterwards just for good measure.

By the time I figured that out, I was sharpening the blade on my Lie Nielsen #6 bench plane, and, I off Dan's finest black and then a clean strop, that blade was wicked sharp.

What I think I need to do is to fire up my Tormek and establish a new hollow grind on some of my chisels, I am probably past due on that; one of my chisels no longer has a hollow grind and I find it more difficult to free hand sharpen it; and no telling what angle it is now. Then, I can try the different stones from a much more common state for my testing.

If some nice benefactor wants to buy one of these for me (https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Edge-On-Up-Professional-Edge-Tester-P1563.aspx) I will have some more objective things to say. See also https://www.edgeonup.com/

Anyone want to have a sharpening party at my house?

[steven c newman]

Going to have one of my own...but, I will be working on a couple handsaws, instead.....

[Tom M King]

It is a natural stone, so maybe not so much just in the name, or which vendor it came from, but how the mix came out when it was formed, and luck of the draw in any particular rock as it's sliced up.

[Warren Mickley]

Arkansas stones take some skill to use and skill to evaluate. The idea that someone is going to make comparisons on day one is not well founded. Further, unless a fine stone is really nicely polished, it will not perform until it has had some use. The best water stones are the same way; they take skill.

[Tony Zaffuto]

I would seriously spend time at some flea markets or antique malls, to search out a few vintage stones. Use your fingernail to test how fine the stone is. I got dozens of stones for a pittance of their value-Washita, hard & transluscent arkansas, etc. if real greasy, probably not a natural stone. Look for a fancy, carved case-meant the owner valued the stone.

These used stones pretty much ready to go with a bit of cleaning. For lube, get some Marvel Mystery Oil or some Norton honing oil and have at it.

[steven c newman]

414798
Sometimes, they are still in the original boxes..too....

[Tony Zaffuto]

414798
Sometimes, they are still in the original boxes..too....

Yep-got many of those. I've gotten many fine natural stones for a couple of bucks each.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

414798
Sometimes, they are still in the original boxes..too....

Just a little jealous. I am no good about finding such things. The problem might be where I live, but, also, I never really know where to go. Steve is really good at finding great things such as this> I enjoy just hanging in his shop to see what he managed to pickup. And sometimes, he throws a few odd-ball things at me. I have a few key-hole saws to tune up. I never owned one before, and am looking forward to reviving them....

[Jim Koepke]

I would seriously spend time at some flea markets or antique malls, to search out a few vintage stones. Use your fingernail to test how fine the stone is. I got dozens of stones for a pittance of their value-Washita, hard & transluscent arkansas, etc. if real greasy, probably not a natural stone. Look for a fancy, carved case-meant the owner valued the stone.

These used stones pretty much ready to go with a bit of cleaning. For lube, get some Marvel Mystery Oil or some Norton honing oil and have at it.

Plain mineral oil in the pharmacy section of the super market is also fine. Some folks will make their own mix with turpentine or other thinning agents.


Yep-got many of those. I've gotten many fine natural stones for a couple of bucks each.

Many of my stones have also come from yard sales, flea markets and antique shops.


Just a little jealous. I am no good about finding such things. The problem might be where I live, but, also, I never really know where to go. Steve is really good at finding great things such as this> I enjoy just hanging in his shop to see what he managed to pickup. And sometimes, he throws a few odd-ball things at me. I have a few key-hole saws to tune up. I never owned one before, and am looking forward to reviving them....

The first key to finding is to get out and look.

The second is talking to people. Many folks selling items know others. Some times it is the person nearby hearing your question offering a lead.

Two of my favorite stones were found at a Gem & Mineral show my wife wanted to visit:

414832

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?148430

The one on the left was given to my grandson so he could sharpen his blades.

jtk

[Tony Zaffuto]

Just a little jealous. I am no good about finding such things. The problem might be where I live, but, also, I never really know where to go. Steve is really good at finding great things such as this> I enjoy just hanging in his shop to see what he managed to pickup. And sometimes, he throws a few odd-ball things at me. I have a few key-hole saws to tune up. I never owned one before, and am looking forward to reviving them....

First clue to a good stone, is if it is in a wooden case. Craftsmen would take pride in their valued tools. Next, scratch your fingernail on the stone to see how fine it is. Get Steve to take you with him!

[steven c newman]

Intend to go out on a walk-about, come this Labor Day Weekend....down in West Liberty, OH......seems they are having a Tractor Fest.....
414838
414839
Never know what I might find down there....

[Tony Zaffuto]

Made a quick stop at an antique mall (Fayetteville, east of Chambersburg, PA), lots of stuff, decent prices, but nothing I needed, except a pair of Starrett 3" round leg dividers. I was giddy with excitement, especially at the $4.00 price, untill
I took a close look: one of the legs was broken, and welded back together. I'll wait for the next pair.

At least a half dozen stones, mainly manmade oilstones-no interest, even at a buck a throw.