I Visited Dan's Whetstones Today!

I have been wanting to visit Dan's for several weeks, and finally got the chance earlier today. I had imagined a small warehouse, with a couple of employees. I was in for a surprise! The main building where work is done used to be a commercial chicken house, now converted into an industrial building. I would estimate it to a little less than the width of a football field, and about twice the length. There were 26 employs working today, and Dan's has employed as many as 42 at times in the recent past. It is a family business, with Dan, his two sons, and daughter all working there.

I have 5 or 6 vintage Arkansas stones, and I took them with me. Dan identified them all for me by type, and then offered to give me a tour of the facility. He had one of the employees lap my old soft Ouachita for me, to absolute perfection! I bought a large bottle of honing oil, and placed an order for a full progression of 10 inch stones (!). Dan owns 500 acres west of Hot Springs, AR, where all of the stone is mined. The raw stone is then processed in the facility, with various diamond edged saws and lapping tables/polishers. They do a huge business in the dental industry, making specialized sharpening tools for dental instruments. They have shipped everywhere in the world, except China!

I took several photos, but some of them are too blurry. A photographer, I am not! If anyone has questions, I will try t o answer them, or I can find out the answers for you! I will post the other pictures and some more comments later, as I can only load up 5 photos per post. Dan is the fellow in the camouflage cap in the first photo.

Thanks for your Photos of the Tour!!

Very cool, thanks for posting and for the pics! Can't wait to see the 10 inch set when they arrive.

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

Cool, thanks for the pictures!

Awesome!

Love it. Thanks for this.

That is great! Thanks. Been a dream of mine to visit.

Very cool. Love that giant lapping drum they've got going.

Awesomeness personified.

Cool pics, hope you have even more!

Sounds like a good pilgrimage.

Here are a couple of shots out back, where stones are brought in from mining. Depending on size and degree of hardness, individual mined stones are taken to several different areas for cutting into smaller pieces. The obviously cut stones out back in these pictures have been cut on a huge saw, moved back outside, and will be transferred inside later for further processing.

This is the biggest saw on premises. It is for cutting huge, freshly mined stones into more humanly manageable sizes. Notice the fork lift and the employ running the saw. This huge blade and all of the smaller blades used at Dan's are diamond blades, as nothing else will cut the Novaculite stone. Some of the blades cost $2000 each, and last for a maximum of 6 months.

Does Dan's have any of that really lovely butterscotch trans ark?

This is a polisher. It is the one that uses $2K blades. Notice the boxes of small stones on the cart. The employ was doing his best get out of the picture as I was taking it!

This large saw is the largest "inside the shop" saw. It is used for cutting the hardest stones (trans and blacks). The fellows were just getting ready to cut another stone. All of the machinery and the floors are kept almost as clean as dinner plates.

These are huge lapping wheels. Each wheel can accommodate 4 employees. I counted 4 of these during my tour.

Nice, the polisher looks like a Blanchard grinder.

They have several of these saws. This size of saw is used for cutting the soft and hard (sold as "medium" and "fine") stones.