Arkansas shaving.

For a kick I took a razor I'd been shaving off an assortment of slates for the past week and polished it up on one of my arks last night. As usual the edge looked a little rougher under the scope, but passed HHT very well, and the shave was excellent. Better than a typical Thuri shave and only a hair behind my best Jnat edges. I took it back to the same stone today to fix up the toe that was a tad behind the rest of the edge and will be shaving off it again tonight.

Got me thinking again about how underappreciated these stones are for razors. Now, they aren't selling for peanuts like they did a few years back (sadly, because if they were, I'd own a hundred of the damned things), but they still don't get much discussion next to Jnats, coti's and even synths. So why not give them a thread I figured. I encourage everyone to spend a few shaves this month toying around with a nice hard arkansas and talk about their impressions, their stones, their techniques, whatever. No bringing specific gravity into this thread though.

Since I don't really "touch-up" hone, I'm curious if anyone has used arks in this capacity and their impression of it compared to alternatives (barbers hones, modern synths, coti's, thuri's, etc).

Love my big bad black Ark a lot. I mean - ALOT.

I tried, many many times, to use that stone to touch up an edge.
Never worked. Not once. Always needed to go back a step or so first. Not sure why, but that's what I had going on.

Interesting. I assume you tried putting a bit more pressure on it and that didn't make the difference?

Tried everything - can't explain it. Just never faired well for me.
I'm assuming it's more me than the stone - could have been I waited too long to touch up.
Dunno.
I have a new translucent - small one, 4x2. was going to give it a spin as a touch up stone just to see.
Thing is - these days edges here never get to that point. I'll have to make a conscious effort to string one along.

Arkansas stones are my preference. Don't know why, but the minute I tried them I was hooked. As for the touch-up question, I have used a black Arkansas to "calm down" a harsh edge on a few occasions. It works very well for this, my sense being that it was acting to burnish the edge more than anything else, like a steel. That said, the advantage of barber's hones and small coticules for this have to do with convenience. When one is in bathroom during the shave and wants to adjust the edge, it's very easy to grab a barber's hone or a coticule with the lather that has already been whipped up and run a few passes with it.

I do have a 4" x 2" true hard Arkansas that is nice and smooth. I haven't tried it like this, but I could give it a shot with some lather and see how it works there.

I also think that Arkansas stones, used with oil, could be good for beginners. Since the stones are slow acting, one has more time to remedy problems that one is introducing through a faulty gesture.

i'd love to try a black ark or progression, you guys make sound solid and that intrigues me..

I think the oil issue is a big non-starter for some. It was for me - then I realized how well a diluted dish-soap works. I love my translucent arks and to date the best edge I've ever honed on my own was from a nice 8x2.

I like using oil, and find it cleaner than water. There is less standing on the surface, and it doesn't splash. Soft Arks need to be soaked in oil for 2-3 days to saturate them. Translucents and black hards are dense enough that the oil does not penetrate, so they can be switched back and forth between oil and water according to one's preference.

Following the idea of using an Arkansas like a barber's hone, I was inspired to whip up a lather with some Vitos lanolin & eucalyptus cream to use the 4"x 2" true hard in such a way. Ten minutes with it and it seemed to work very well, and I like the lather as it is a kind of compromise between oil and water. At first, the cushion gives way to a film that holds up for a spell, before there is the sound and feel of the edge against the stone. Great feedback in this regard. I can see honing through the film, then applying a bit cushion once more at the end for some very light finishing passes. It's enough to make me contemplate picking up a 4" x 2" black stone to experiment with in a similar way.

After rinsing the stone with water and drying, the water seemed to have contributed to a kind of hydrating effect, leading me to wonder if the "nap" of the stone's surface had been minutely raised, similar to a wood surface. I also have some apricot kernel oil, which is a base massaging oil. Perhaps it might work well with the stone in the bathroom too. Going to give it a whirl.

Thanks for the inspiring thread, Ian.

Yeah, what alum said. Working with oil is an advantage for me. You're talking one of the worst things to leave on your stone and razor... something that has to be refreshed regularly and is actually pretty mediocre at what it does, with something you almost never have to refresh that is actually beneficial on your stone and razor. If synths cut as well on oil as on water, I'd use it on them too.

Hate using oil on stones. Can't stand how it feels, smells, or acts.
It's the main reason I never persued using softer Arks. They must be used with oil and I just don't want oil soaked stones hanging around the house.
Don't want a bucket of soaking King stones either. I'm fussy about stuff like that.

Water - it evaporates. I use 2-3 drops on the Ark and maybe a dash of soap or glycerine.
It rinses off when I'm done, any residue evaporates off. When I need water - its right there in the sink - no need to go get a can of something that is going to leave a ring of oil on the workbench/sink/etc.

Oil - it stains clothes, smells like oil, gets all over everything it can. It seeps, it soaks and it stains. I like the smell of most petroleum products, but not in a way where I want to smell that in my house.

Keep it and have fun with it. I love that people use it and I don't have issues with anyone doing so.
But I'll stick to using water and soap and/or glycerine.
I do want to try that water soluble honing solution though. Just to do it - not because I think it's going to make a difference.

Gamma, I just tried some apricot kernel oil on the 4" x 2" true hard. No smell there, and it's good and good for you. Nice C.O. Bigelow bottle I picked up in the mother store near the Village for about $12, or about 3x what it might go for if one was to seriously shop around. Probably enough for my lifetime. Dab a finger with it and smear it across the surface a couple of times, just to cover it. Then it's ready to go. Works great, and then you can wash the stone off with a sponge and dish-washing detergent. Doing this will eliminated the stickiness factor associated with vegetable oil. A nice, light oil with no odor. The apricot kernel oil being a base massaging oil, I wiped the blade on a dry bar towel and went straight to the leather thinking that if there is a remaining trace, it will probably be good for the leather, since it is good for human skin.

Gamma said:

Hate using oil on stones. Can't stand how it feels, smells, or acts.
It's the main reason I never persued using softer Arks. They must be used with oil and I just don't want oil soaked stones hanging around the house.
Don't want a bucket of soaking King stones either. I'm fussy about stuff like that.

Water - it evaporates. I use 2-3 drops on the Ark and maybe a dash of soap or glycerine.
It rinses off when I'm done, any residue evaporates off. When I need water - its right there in the sink - no need to go get a can of something that is going to leave a ring of oil on the workbench/sink/etc.

Oil - it stains clothes, smells like oil, gets all over everything it can. It seeps, it soaks and it stains. I like the smell of most petroleum products, but not in a way where I want to smell that in my house.

Keep it and have fun with it. I love that people use it and I don't have issues with anyone doing so.
But I'll stick to using water and soap and/or glycerine.
I do want to try that water soluble honing solution though. Just to do it - not because I think it's going to make a difference.

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I use the Smiths Honing Solution. Works well and it rinses right off. Also contains rust inhibitors so I guess that's a plus for some (I make sure my razors are dry and store them in silicone sleeves so rust isn't a issue)

Danricgro said:

I use the Smiths Honing Solution. Works well and it rinses right off. Also contains rust inhibitors so I guess that's a plus for some (I make sure my razors are dry and store them in silicone sleeves so rust isn't a issue)

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I picked up a bottle of Smiths Honing Solution when my oil was getting low, and I prefer the oil. Its handy that it cleans your stone, but as for protecting from rust, oil does the same thing. I tried the stuff on my Washita, and I just can't get used to it. I guess I'm an oil man. That being said, I treat my Washita the same as many treat their translucents (and I also). I just put a few drops on top and goto work. It seems to work for me.

Yeah I used synth lubes on my stones and they work ok, but I find them to tend to be a little thinner than I like.

I've tried Mineral oil, water and glycerin on my arkies and the mineral oil is by far my favorite. There's a stickiness to the glycerin that I don't like, but the mineral oil (food grade, btw) has zero smell and washes off as easily as the glycerin with a drop of dish soap.

OK, which type of Ark are you guys using.
Is there a difference between translucent and surgical black.
Tell me more, my trigger finger is itching already!

oakeshott said:

I've tried Mineral oil, water and glycerin on my arkies and the mineral oil is by far my favorite. There's a stickiness to the glycerin that I don't like, but the mineral oil (food grade, btw) has zero smell and washes off as easily as the glycerin with a drop of dish soap.

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I like mineral oil, too, and for the same reasons. No smell, food grade, good consistency. That's what I always use on my Washita, and what I plan to use on my softer stones (Soft and Hard from NaturalWhetstone, both on the softer side of the Arkansas spectrum), but on my Black and Translucent Black I plan to try water+dish soap first.

BakerAndBadger said:

OK, which type of Ark are you guys using.
Is there a difference between translucent and surgical black.
Tell me more, my trigger finger is itching already!

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Most of us have both. In my experience, there's no reliable difference between a yellow/white translucent and a black translucent commonly referred to as a Surgical Black. There are differences between individual stones, but I doubt that anyone can say that the average SB is better than a non-black translucent or vice versa. Some people prefer the vintage to the newer ones, all of mine are vintage, but again I doubt that the vintage stones are necessarily better. This is one of the great things about arkies. You can get a new one from Dan's and it might very well be just as good as a vintage.

If you're getting curious though, be aware of the ugly side of these stones. They're a nightmare to lap. Search in this sub forum and you'll see a bunch of threads on lapping them. Papafish has what sounds like a good system worked out, but there's no getting around the labor involved in smoothing your arkie out to the point where it's really a great polishing machine.

oakeshott said:

Most of us have both. In my experience, there's no reliable difference between a yellow/white translucent and a black translucent commonly referred to as a Surgical Black. There are differences between individual stones, but I doubt that anyone can say that the average SB is better than a non-black translucent or vice versa. Some people prefer the vintage to the newer ones, all of mine are vintage, but again I doubt that the vintage stones are necessarily better. This is one of the great things about arkies. You can get a new one from Dan's and it might very well be just as good as a vintage.

If you're getting curious though, be aware of the ugly side of these stones. They're a nightmare to lap. Search in this sub forum and you'll see a bunch of threads on lapping them. Papafish has what sounds like a good system worked out, but there's no getting around the labor involved in smoothing your arkie out to the point where it's really a great polishing machine.

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I have purchased a number of stones from Dan's. Out of the box, they're normally flat when testing with a 1/1000" piece of tape. So, lapping has generally not been needed in their case. Smoothing is another matter. Take a couple of eBay beaters with chips and try to hone out the chips with them. After a while the stones will be smooth. ;-) According to Dan's, their black stone is finer than their translucent. When honing, I find that there's a different feeling between the two. The black stone feels harder or more brittle, while the translucent stone feels more waxen. Edge off the black is a little bit sharper too.

I have a black translucent from Natural whetstones that was not flat out of the box and have never been able to successfully lap it (most of the surface, yes, but not the corners before giving up). Got a good dose of tennis elbow from that one! I'd love to know Papa's method. Only way that seemed to work for me was to use some coarse or medium emery cloth on plate glass. After a while the abrasive becomes dislodged in combination with particles from the stone. When one can finally lap the stone with its own particle abrasive, it polishes to a mirror shine pretty quickly.

oakeshott said:

Most of us have both. In my experience, there's no reliable difference between a yellow/white translucent and a black translucent commonly referred to as a Surgical Black. There are differences between individual stones, but I doubt that anyone can say that the average SB is better than a non-black translucent or vice versa. Some people prefer the vintage to the newer ones, all of mine are vintage, but again I doubt that the vintage stones are necessarily better. This is one of the great things about arkies. You can get a new one from Dan's and it might very well be just as good as a vintage.

If you're getting curious though, be aware of the ugly side of these stones. They're a nightmare to lap. Search in this sub forum and you'll see a bunch of threads on lapping them. Papafish has what sounds like a good system worked out, but there's no getting around the labor involved in smoothing your arkie out to the point where it's really a great polishing machine.

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They are EXTREMELY hard! I am still trying to find the time to finish lapping my stones. Life is just very busy lately. Loose SiC abrasive (rock tumbling grit) works very well. I am using it on worn out w/d sandpaper (to protect the flat base stone) and it holds up really well. I am doing all my work dry. I have built a LEGO Lapping Jig that is great for flattening a domed stone. The stones I got from Natural Whetstone are all quite domed.

Loose grit SiC is great, but if you are using a pencil grid, it will wipe it off the surface WELL before it's flat. I turned to using a sharpie grid, and it works well. It's depressing to see how slowly it disappears on the Black stone (not the harder Translucent Black), but at least it doesn't lie to you. Honestly though, on my Black and Translucent Black stones it's quite easy to use reflected light to see the difference in shine, and thus know where more work is needed.

Another potential down side to these stones is they are reputed to be very slow working. Most say that until you have a maxed out 12K+ edge (12K SS, Thuri, well broken in Black Arkansas, etc.), that it's about futile to try to advance to the Translucent stones. Large stones (10") can take 200 or 300 laps, small stones can take over 1,000. Now, that's not to start seeing results, but to get the best results. Perhaps this could be broken up into sets of 50 or 100 after each shave, slowly progressing forward, and be more of a maintenance type thing.

I remember another member using his Translucent stone with nagura stones, using the superior hardness of the Arkansas to mimic a super hard JNat. He really liked the results and said it worked very well. Many prefer the white Translucent stones so they can see the swarf being created, but in this case he would have preferred a Black Translucent so he could better see the slurry.