my first oil stones

[Luke Dupont]

I quite like a Fine India coupled with a "Hard" (inbetween "Soft" and "True Hard / Black / Transluscent" on Dan's grading scale) Arkansas.
The "Hard" or as I call it, "Semi Hard" Arkansas is probably my favorite of the bunch.

Both stones can be replaced with a single vintage Washita produced by Pike or Norton -- not the modern Washitas. These cut both fine and quick. But they can be expensive and hard to track down.

Be sure to keep your oilstones flat and dressed. They'll stay flat for a long time, especially the Arks, but they will dish and the surface may need to be "roughened up" from time to time to keep them cutting quickly. If you keep them clean and dressed, they cut almost as quickly as waterstones.

[Jim Koepke]

One thing going for the Crystolon and India stones is they are inexpensive.

The links below are for 8 X 3" stones. This is a good size for my needs. You may want different sizes.

India stones > https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/N...-3-P23C25.aspx

Crystolon stones > https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/N...-3-P24C25.aspx

My Crystolon stone is about 2 X 4" and is only used occasionally.

jtk

[Reed Gray]

I think the fine side of the Norton "India' stones is about 400 grit. Rather coarse for some, but some like it, as long as you strop after. I went with diamond lapping plates from DMT. You can use the Trend Lapping fluid, which ain't cheap, or go with ammonia free window washing fluid, and the ones intended for use on cars don't have ammonia in them because that can eat the seals around the glass. Apparently ammonia can also interfere with the bonding material on the diamond lapping plates. I do have one Trend stone which is 300 grit on one side, and 1000 grit on the other. The 300 grit side is slightly concave. The lapping plates from DMT are pretty much dead flat. They come in grits up to 8000.

robo hippy

[Adam AR Brown]

Replace the 800 grit with a Norton Fine India stone. Replace the 4000 grit with a soft arkansas.

Luckily, both of those should be fairly inexpensive...it's the translucent or surgical black stones that get pricey.

Yeah, interesting. In my online research on arkansas stones I've been finding kind of contradictory information. A few charts I've seen class the hard black as being in the range of a 4000x waterstone. eg. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/tools/grit-charts And the soft arkansas as being more of a coarse grinding stone. But the description of how the stones are used it seems like people get almost a finished edge off the soft ark.

I'm thinking I'll get a soft arkansas to start / try it out, and then later maybe get the hard black or translucent if I think I need it.

Assuming they are flat when you get them, then they will stay flat for years. But I do suggest keeping a diamond hone around to "wake up" the stone every so often, because the stones will get finer and slower over time as you use them. This is a consequence of being hard and not shedding abrasive constantly like waterstones.

Do you use just a small paddle-type hone? Eg. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop...d?item=05M0801 Any recommendation for grit?

Thanks for all the advice in this thread.

[Richard Coers]

A styrofoam cooler with a 50 watt incandescent bulb warm box will be a lot cheaper than new stones. Also provides a storage place for your glue.

[Luke Dupont]

Yeah, interesting. In my online research on arkansas stones I've been finding kind of contradictory information. A few charts I've seen class the hard black as being in the range of a 4000x waterstone. eg. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/tools/grit-charts And the soft arkansas as being more of a coarse grinding stone. But the description of how the stones are used it seems like people get almost a finished edge off the soft ark.

Don't be confused by "grit" charts. People new to Arks get thrown off by this.

Technically, a soft ark might be close to 600 grit, and a black close to 1000 grit. But in actuality, the surface is entirely different from manmade stones, and the soft "600 grit" ark will cut like a 1500-3000 grit man-made stone. The black will cut more like an 8-10k.
Grit means nothing when talking about natural stones because the shape of the "grit" itself and the shallowness of the peaks and valleys are not taken into account. It's not like a homogenous brick of evenly sized particles, and in the case of novaculite, there's not even really individual particles. They're all fused together and the peaks and valleys are much, much shallower than with man-made stones, leaving an entirely different kind of edge and scratch pattern.

None of the Arkansas stones are particularly aggressive. They're all middle and finishing stones. I'd roughly estimate their equivalent man-made ranges as follows:
Soft - ~2k
Hard - ~4k
True Hard, Transluscent, Black - ~8k+

Each stone is also slightly different, albiet, novaculite is pretty consistent.

There are also vintage Pike/Norton Washitas -- these are different from modern Washitas. They cut more like a 1k stone but can leave an edge closer to a 4k stone if you follow it up with a strop. Because of the extremely shallow scratch pattern that it leaves (similar to Arks), the edge can be refined on just bare leather to a surprising extent. They easily have the widest "range" of any of the Arks and make a decent one-stone hone.

[Adam AR Brown]

A styrofoam cooler with a 50 watt incandescent bulb warm box will be a lot cheaper than new stones. Also provides a storage place for your glue.

I love it. For sure. The shop is unpowered though. Basically it's just like 48 sq ft in my landlady's storage shed. But it's got an old workbench - I'm lucky to have it... I've done way cooler stuff there than I did in my old 300 sq ft machine shop.

[Adam AR Brown]

Thanks Luke, that's really helpful.

I found this interesting study of Arkansas stone's "effective grits" that bears out what you're saying: https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com...tone-grits.php

I'm excited to try them out.

[chuck van dyck]

I feel this thread has finally broken through to me how oil stones work. So thanks. I am excited to clean up all the oil stones Ive bought at flea markets over the years and see what its all about.

[Kevin Adams]

Adam, some good suggestions here. I haven’t checked prices on eBay in a while, but vintage Washitas (Pike) are an excellent stone if you don’t let your tool get too far gone. With the right touch, they can both raise a burr and then lighten up to give a nice finish, followed by a strop. And if you ever needed something finer, you could get a Dan’s surgical black.

Please let us know what you end up with and how it works out.

Thanks.
Kevin

[Michael Bulatowicz]

From the link, “

The Arkansas Stones we used in the test were new. Before beginning, we tested the specific gravity of each stone then broke them in by making 500 passes over an ordinary kitchen knife. We used mineral oil for a lubricant. We cleaned the stones with mineral oil before beginning the test passes.”

Even my limited experience says that’s not even close to “broken in” and the Arkansas stones would have generated a more polished edge if they had actually seen a good deal of use. I’ve had my Dan’s hard black for only about a year and a half, and it’s still improving (or maybe I’m getting better at using it, or maybe a little of each).

[Robert Hazelwood]

Yeah, interesting. In my online research on arkansas stones I've been finding kind of contradictory information. A few charts I've seen class the hard black as being in the range of a 4000x waterstone. eg. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/tools/grit-charts And the soft arkansas as being more of a coarse grinding stone. But the description of how the stones are used it seems like people get almost a finished edge off the soft ark.

I'm thinking I'll get a soft arkansas to start / try it out, and then later maybe get the hard black or translucent if I think I need it.



Do you use just a small paddle-type hone? Eg. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop...d?item=05M0801 Any recommendation for grit?

Thanks for all the advice in this thread.

They cut very differently. If I look at the finish the stone puts on the bevel, the soft ark makes a nice "cloudy" finish. It's not reflective but you can't really make out individual scratches. It does a good job setting up the edge for a polishing stone, which is what a 3-4000 grit waterstone would be expected to do. It's a middle stone. You could definitely get a usable edge off of it, especially for scrapers and pocket knives, axes, etc. For paring chisels and smoothing plane blades I'd want to finish on a finer stone (could be a strop or a block of wood with polishing compound).

As far as the diamond stones, I use large diamond bench stones- 220 grit for the Fine India and 320 for the soft ark. I bought these diamond stones long before getting the arks so I just used what I had. I think a small paddle type would be fine. I think just about any grit of diamond stone would be ok except for super fine grit. But if you get the oil stones, sharpen for a while before using the diamond hones. If new, the stones may be fairly coarse to begin with. They should settle down fairly soon though, and if you notice them getting slow then that's when to hit it with the diamond stone.

[Luke Dupont]

From the link, “

The Arkansas Stones we used in the test were new. Before beginning, we tested the specific gravity of each stone then broke them in by making 500 passes over an ordinary kitchen knife. We used mineral oil for a lubricant. We cleaned the stones with mineral oil before beginning the test passes.”

Even my limited experience says that’s not even close to “broken in” and the Arkansas stones would have generated a more polished edge if they had actually seen a good deal of use. I’ve had my Dan’s hard black for only about a year and a half, and it’s still improving (or maybe I’m getting better at using it, or maybe a little of each).

This is true. Arks wear in and become finer over time, and that can take quite a bit of time for the harder types.

Moreover, that link compared scratch patterns and not actual sharpness. Deep scratches left by man-made stones, especially diamonds, are in no way equal to the extremely shallow scratches and burnishing effect left by Arkansas stones. They may look the same under a microscope, but the quality of the edge is totally different.

[Michael Bulatowicz]

This is true. Arks wear in and become finer over time, and that can take quite a bit of time for the harder types.

Moreover, that link compared scratch patterns and not actual sharpness. Deep scratches left by man-made stones, especially diamonds, are in no way equal to the extremely shallow scratches and burnishing effect left by Arkansas stones. They may look the same under a microscope, but the quality of the edge is totally different.

I agree, Luke. The real test of an edge is the surface of the wood after it has been cut. The image below is from a planed pine board from a few months ago using the Dan's hard black Arkansas as the finishing stone for sharpening the iron. Looks pretty good to me; still, the more I use this stone, the better the finish gets (though the differences get more and more subtle over time).


IMG_0048 copy.jpg

[Michael Bulatowicz]

As further evidence in favor of the polishing properties of Arkansas stones, Warren Mickley posted (January 2020) some scratch pattern images by Zowada (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....uppliers/page2).

Translucent Arkansas (I would guess truly broken in, though details were not provided):
ZowadaTransArkSm.jpg

Versus Shapton 15k at the same magnification:
zowShapton15kSm.jpg

It doesn't appear to me that the Shapton is likely to produce as bright a surface (or as long-lasting an edge) as the Arkansas in this example, though I have zero test data to support my interpretation of the images.

These images do, however, appear consistent with my experience: I already get a better edge (based on the planed surface of the wood) using my (largely?) worn-in Dan's hard black Arkansas than I do off my Sigma 13k (which, perhaps ironically, is finer than the Shapton 15k according to scratch pattern images posted on WoodCentral by David Weaver). As I mentioned, the edge I get from my Dan's hard black Arkansas stone is still improving--though the edge I get from the Sigma 13k is not.