My New Set of Arkansas Stones!

After visiting Dan's Whetstones a few days ago, I couldn't help myself. I had to get a set.

I had Dan and Sterlen (father and son) help me hand pick out a set of 3 stones, each one 3" X 10". They pick stones completely by density/specific gravity, NOT by color/appearance.

I ended up with these three: a "Medium" (Soft Arkansas), a "Fine" (Hard Arkansas) , and an "Ultra Fine" (Black Arkansas).

Dan's makes no question about it. Their "black" is finer than their "translucent" stone. And, to their credit, they don't try to "sell you up". In fact, they talk you down into what you really need, not what your vanity might think! If one is going to hone a straight razor, they see no reason to buy a "true hard" over the "hard" Arkansas stone, since one plans to step on up to the black Arkansas stone as a finisher. By the same reasoning, they do not recommend the "extra fine" translucent over the "black" ultra fine. It would be a step back in your progression toward finishing a razor's edge.

They did suggest a synthetic bevel setting stone, followed by the exact progression that I purchased. One can use a "Ouachita" (almost always misspelled as "Washita" on the Internet and outside of Garland County, Arkansas) stone for bevel setting (somewhat slow), but they are no longer mined, and are becoming exceedingly rare. In fact, Sterlen and Dan didn't think that they had a Ouachita anywhere on the premises, out of tens of thousands of stones. So, if you have an old "Washita" stone, you better hang onto it, or get a premium price for it.

To avoid confusion, I had the lids out of order on top of the stones in the first photo below. the progression is soft (in the rear), hard (middle), and black (front).

Beautiful stones! Thanks for posting, I was wanting to see them. I didnt know the washitas were that rare.

So the next big question is, even though we saw the big lapping wheels in the other fanstatic thread, are they lapped as flat as we want?

Cool stones!

Nice set.

Mike

rockviper said:

So the next big question is, even though we saw the big lapping wheels in the other fanstatic thread, are they lapped as flat as we want?

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Yes, they are very well lapped. I was instructed to just start using them. I have been dragging a worthless straight razor across them for about 3 hours this evening. Here is the Black after about 500 strokes with a few drops of Dans honing oil. Sorry my photography sucks so badly!

Very nice stones. If I ever get around that area of AR. I would like to pay them a visit.

It's Washita. The French changed the spelling in the eighteenth century, but we're not French.

It's also evidently plentiful... but only in Nortons mines, and they don't consider the demand high enough to dig it up for sale, they're happy selling their synths. Other's do dig it, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim it's on par with the old stuff; most seem to say it's just soft ark being sold as Washita.

They're still pretty cheap to pick up vintage (if you don't demand a LW, RR or similar high dollar label), and they wear quite quickly and as you say, there aren't any more coming around... so if you like them, I'd start a collection now. I let a 12x2" slip through my fingers (got sniped) for barely a hundred dollars a few weeks back... and I think I even knew the seller (was listed on eBay in the same (fairly small) town as me... and I've been to yard sales at the house of a retired cabinet maker who lives a street away from me). An 8x2 with a $25 BIN and free shipping almost ended untouched (7 day listing, made it to the last day) last week. They're still pretty easy to get... but for how long.

Very nice SB there.

SliceOfLife said:

It's Washita. Anglo-Americans changed the spelling in the nineteenth century.

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Fixed that for you. ;-)

Good luck with the set! What are the dimensions? [Edit: oops, they're given, 10" x 3".] It's really great that they could personally recommend particular stones for you.

Very nice set of stones!
It's interesting that Dan recommended a synth bevel setter before the soft Ark. The soft Ark is a pretty good bevel setter.

Alum of Potash said:

Fixed that for you. ;-)

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http://www.ouachitariver.org/primitive%20age.htm

[url]http://www.ouachitariver.org/main.htm
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Personally, I haven't found a need for the hard Ark in the progression, it's too close to the soft/medium for me. True hard afterwards works for me, followed by the black hard. Originally, Dan's suggested soft/medium > black hard as a progression for razors to me.

In theory, Dan's Washita would be more aggressive than their soft/medium, so that may be why they are suggesting a synth stone as a precursor--it would do the same work as their Washita, if they had one. I agree with John that the soft/medium is good bevel-setter. Dan's also sells SiC and AlOx synth stones, sort of like Norton Crystolon and India stones.

Other Washitas may vary, as mentioned. I have a Norton no. 1 Washita which is a great bevel setter and a Pike's lily white that can move from bevel-setting to rustic shaving as need be. Different feel on the lily white than with the other Washitas, more buttery and waxen, closer to a translucent. Here's a shot of a Norton Washita stone that was for sale several months back; I took note of it because it's labelled as "Washita" but looks a lot like the soft/mediums that Dan's is currently selling. Not saying that it would necessarily act the same, just saying that it looks very similar. Somewhere I came across a statement to the effect that in the older distinction between "soft" and "hard" Arkansas stones, "Washita" would have fallen into the "soft" category, which suggested that the terms could be used interchangeably.





About "Washita" or "Ouachita": French settlement of the area preceded Anglo-American settlement. French settlers, in modifying the original American Indian terms would have followed their orthography, which would have been "ou" for our "w" and "ch" for our "sh." So the spelling "Ouachita," would have preceded "Washita," any such change having been introduced by Anglo-Americans moving into the area later. It's similar to the current town of Wilmette, which is a suburb to the north of Chicago; originally, it was spelled Ouilmette. Not that it really makes a difference in this case though, since the two spellings would still seem to exist side by side in the Arkansas-Oklahoma region.

All I can tell you guys is that after living in the Ouachita mountains, fishing in the Ouachita river, and driving down Ouachita Avenue everyday to my office for 20 years, nobody has changed the spelling around here! And, I have never encountered the spelling "Washita" until I started learning about Arkansas stones. But, in any event, its all good!

I have no idea about which spelling is correct...I just go by what the label on my stone says. Right or wrong, pike has been spelling it washita for a long time. Maybe just for marketing purposes?

Dcaddo111 said:

I have no idea about which spelling is correct...I just go by what the label on my stone says. Right or wrong, pike has been spelling it washita for a long time. Maybe just for marketing purposes?

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Yep.

Okay, maybe Washita was introduced via marketing, and Ouachita is what prevails there locally to this day. Fine by me. I was just saying that the French didn't change the spelling as was alleged. So the American mercantile spirit made the change, if you wish; and yes, "Washita" would be used to refer to such a stone. As an aside, these can sometimes be found on the 'Bay, and I don't think they're referring to hones:

Very nice stones !!!

Greets Sebastian.

The Tribe name everything was named after were the Washita (Well technically the tribe named the river and river gave its name to the tribe); that's what they're called in the history books. The french wanted to spell it Ouachita (The mountains and river, tribe was gone) and the tribe weren't around to say much about it at that point if they had cared; not using our alphabet and all. Not sure why the hone-makers wanted to go back to Washita, possibly easier to market as a Native American stone than a French one, but there you go. Not exactly sure why the French spelling prevailed over the English one there. Probably similar to many cases of such in Louisiana. Changing a stone that wasn't spelled in French to a French spelling to match area names in a non-French speaking area seems pretty silly to me. Kind of like the guys who insist it's pronounced "Ahndeevay", instead of Endive.

Yeah kind of like restaurant and restaurant. No?