The One Stone Challenge

[Tony Zaffuto]

Not applicable to this thread, but I was in David's neck of the woods yesterday (hockey game last night and SWMBO wanted to shop first). I had my opportunity to go into my first woodworking store ever, which was the Rockler near Ross Park Mall. They only had one stone, so someone in that store must be reading this thread (although that stone was a two side, fine/coarse manmade thing).

In all fairness, it was nice spending time in a store catering to woodworkers and I enjoyed looking at the wide array of turning stock and other items on display.

[David Weaver]

Tony, that's more or less my local hardware store, I'm about 3 miles down the road from there (wasn't home most of yesterday, though). The contents of the store have changed a lot over the last 7 or 8 years, pretty much away from anything hand tool related (as have most other similar stores). It's still a good place to get screws or the emergency 2x4 foot ply panel - I don't know of anywhere else within 15 miles that you could get good ply in small quantities.

Tough loss in the hockey game, huh?

[Tony Zaffuto]

Was at the first game and last night's game. The first game, the Pens approached the game as if Columbus was going to be a push-over. Fluery also wasn't quite on his game, but the Pens still won. Last night, Columbus was by far the better team and the only reason the score wasn't worse for the Pens was that Fluery was really on.

The guys that worked in that store seemed pretty knowledgable and not pushy at all for the few questions I asked. If you do any amount of turning, it would be a great local resource. Also, lots of clamps. But as I said, just a single stone and I couldn't locate the hand planes, though they did have a few Japanese saws. Lots of Flexcut knives, too.

[David Weaver]

Yeah, lots of clamps and from time to time they have a special that makes it worth picking some up.

The guys in there are definitely helpful, I'd much rather have the store there than not. We're dying for a decent local lumber supplier here, though. The stuff in the wall racks there is usually good quality, but the stuff you'd use a lot (cherry, etc) isn't on sale from the racks. They do bring in pallets of shorts and narrows for cheap that is on sale, but there's often a reason its there (color, etc).

They used to have hock irons and more hand tools, but I'll admit, that's probably not something they sold that much of. I'm sure they do better with plastic gadgetry and consumables and such. I've gotten some decent deals on freud bit sets there, too (like door sets) because you can use their coupons on them. They'll try new hand tools once in a while in small displays, but they usually don't last too long.

[David Weaver]

One last one. I thought I was done buying washitas (and I guess there's an outside chance I could end up with one more), but I saw this stone on ebay last week, and I knew looking at it that it had absolutely zero chance of not being a washita.

I also saw that it had a ton of sway (dip) in it and figured that I'd just turn it over in a stone box and set it in plaster of paris. I didn't, however, notice that the bottom wasn't full width. In reading the auction description, the middle of the stone was still thicker than most stones, so I put a bid of 60 bucks on it and went to bed.

To my surprise, I got it.

It looked like this:
IMG_20140421_192843_600.jpg

The only thing I have that can deal with stones like this is one of those 4x36 belt sanders that is marked ryobi from home depot. It's pretty gutless, but if you stand the belt straight up and put a fresh belt on it and work the stone against the *drum* at the end of the belt, it will actually hog an arkansas stone pretty fast, leaving you something you can manage to finish off with a diamond hone. The key is having a hard-backed contact point on the drum, because putting the stone itself on a belt with platen is very slow, and this sander doesn't have enough in its pants to really let you bear down like that, anyway, it'll just stall.

About 10 minutes on the belt sander and 10 minutes with a diamond hone, and I still have this (which is about 30mm thick - thicker than any of my other washitas). Strange smell when grinding it, though - like fire, or like a match being struck.

IMG_20140422_195637_960.jpg

Strange looking. The lilywhite stones have no mottling on them at all, they just look like a uniform porous surface. The far end of this stone is halfway like that. The end toward the camera is entirely mottled, or uniformly dense with no pores. It still cuts like a washita, but it is heavier and denser than any of the other ones I have, we'll see if it settles in fine because of it. The bottom is better than I thought width wise and close to 2" at its narrowest part, so I could still use it. And the bottom is similar to a lilywhite with little mottling, so the stone itself is like a 2 for 1. Norton never would've sold this as a no 1 or a lilywhite, but they did have combo hones that had more mottling in (and were probably less expensive) and they might've slabbed a stone like this in two to make one of those hones, or they may have just discarded it.

Nice stone, though, and it was over 1 1/2" thick at the ends - so someone must've really loved it to put that much sway in it from use. Whatever they were doing wasn't gouging it willy nilly, because it was mirror smooth despite the sway. Maybe a butcher or something.

[Noah Wagener]

IMG_20140422_195637_960.jpg

Strange looking. The lilywhite stones have no mottling on them at all, they just look like a uniform porous surface. The far end of this stone is halfway like that. The end toward the camera is entirely mottled, or uniformly dense with no pores.

Did you reverse that or is that what you meant? To me it appears more mottled on the far end. The end near the camera appears homogenous in color.

As a 2 stone challenge, is a Washita the best initial stone or should one be looking for a vintage soft Arkansas. I suppose a Washita can make the edge finer so you save time on the finisher but I am just talking the fastest at re-establishing a bezel. If a Washita is quicker than soft, what end of that stone you pictured would be what i would want to look for in a stone? (again, as a prelim stone, something you'd use like a 1,000 grit artificial)

I think i have one of those combo hones you were referring to and it seems to give a finer edge that a white Ark slipstone i have. That white really is a lot more agressive than I was expecting. I did not think a Hard Arkansas would make much if any swarf but it was not too dissimilar from a artificial waterstone.

sawmillcreek 069.jpgsawmillcreek 070.jpg

Is that type of case what you were referring to as a combo hone? I have seen an identical one but with green felt sold as a Norton Washita/India combo. Mine has no markings to indicate that.

sawmillcreek 110.jpg


These thinner stones tend to be inferior? I was going to sell it here but will put it on the bay if it is not a good representation of a Washita.

And Pike had the best Washitas, did they also have the best hard Arkansasseses? That slipstone and another hard white Arkansas i have are labeled Pike, Norton, and Behr-Manning; all on the same label.

sawmillcreek 071.jpg

Are stones with this label a good vintage? Incidentally, The one to the left was owned by a R.H. Weaver.

Is the plaster of Paris so that you can bear down on the stone without fear of cracking it? The case of the above Washita only supports the stone about an eighth of an inch around the perimeter. That is one thing i like about these stones is that you can use extreme pressure with no fear of gouging them if you make a mistake.

[Darren Brewster]

I don't know if it has been discussed in this thread yet David, but what about if it was a two stone challenge? What oil stones would you use then? Any of the easily commercially accessible synthetic or natural stones any good?

[David Weaver]

Soft ark - hard/black/traslucent ark
washita - hard/black/trans ark (there'd be no need to let the washita get to slow cutting them, you could keep it fresh and fast cutting)
washita - biggs or owyhee jasper (jasper is a bit harder and slower than black or trans ark, but it's finer, and it seems to work OK on HSS, not as fast cutting, but to remove the burr from the washita)

If fast is desired, fine india and settled in washita would be a nice combination.

I'd rather go to the grinder more often and leave the stones slower and finer cutting, though. I use the india from time to time if I'm getting lazy, or sharpening something I don't put on the grinder (like a japanese plane blade ground into a jack profile)

[David Weaver]

Did you reverse that or is that what you meant? To me it appears more mottled on the far end. The end near the camera appears homogenous in color.

As a 2 stone challenge, is a Washita the best initial stone or should one be looking for a vintage soft Arkansas. I suppose a Washita can make the edge finer so you save time on the finisher but I am just talking the fastest at re-establishing a bezel. If a Washita is quicker than soft, what end of that stone you pictured would be what i would want to look for in a stone? (again, as a prelim stone, something you'd use like a 1,000 grit artificial)

I think i have one of those combo hones you were referring to and it seems to give a finer edge that a white Ark slipstone i have. That white really is a lot more agressive than I was expecting. I did not think a Hard Arkansas would make much if any swarf but it was not too dissimilar from a artificial waterstone.

sawmillcreek 069.jpgsawmillcreek 070.jpg

Is that type of case what you were referring to as a combo hone? I have seen an identical one but with green felt sold as a Norton Washita/India combo. Mine has no markings to indicate that.

sawmillcreek 110.jpg


These thinner stones tend to be inferior? I was going to sell it here but will put it on the bay if it is not a good representation of a Washita.

And Pike had the best Washitas, did they also have the best hard Arkansasseses? That slipstone and another hard white Arkansas i have are labeled Pike, Norton, and Behr-Manning; all on the same label.

sawmillcreek 071.jpg

Are stones with this label a good vintage? Incidentally, The one to the left was owned by a R.H. Weaver.

Is the plaster of Paris so that you can bear down on the stone without fear of cracking it? The case of the above Washita only supports the stone about an eighth of an inch around the perimeter. That is one thing i like about these stones is that you can use extreme pressure with no fear of gouging them if you make a mistake.

Noah, I didn't notice your post. Those cases with the combination stone are an exception to the less good stones on combos. Every one of those that I've seen has a good uniform high quality stone in it, better than the combo that I have (which is just a stone with no case - a much less expensive version. I would consider the stones in the combo case to be top quality, as good as the full thickness marked stones and better than new stones now for the most part.

I have never gotten my fingers on a vintage norton hard ark, because I have a lot of hard arks and they end up going too high for me. That said, they look better than the current stones, and the very old ones that have only the pike mark (with no norton or behr manning) look the best of all of them. It's possible that the old arks that I have could've come from pike, but they've long since shed their labels.

As far as the washitas vs. the non-washita softs, there is a huge range in how coarse the softs are, even the old ones. Some of them are very coarse, and some of them not so much. I like a washita better, it can do the fast cutting if you want to keep it that way, and it has a better feel and makes a better edge when it's still activated. If a hard ark is following either of them, it doesn't really make a lot of practical difference.

WRT to the stone that I have, the whole thing is mottled to some extent, you're right. What I'm used to seeing on a lilywhite washita is the whitish porous part that's on a lilywhite or a woodworker's delight stone, and this stone only has that on the far end. On the near end, it's a very dense and solid material. It still performs like any other washita, though, I've been using it the last week or two, and it's settling in. It raises a wire edge and does decent, but the appearance will pose a problem if I ever sell it. I paid $52 or something for it, and I wouldn't get more than that back out of it despite doing a lot of work on it. That's OK, though.

[Darren Brewster]

Soft ark - hard/black/traslucent ark
washita - hard/black/trans ark (there'd be no need to let the washita get to slow cutting them, you could keep it fresh and fast cutting)
washita - biggs or owyhee jasper (jasper is a bit harder and slower than black or trans ark, but it's finer, and it seems to work OK on HSS, not as fast cutting, but to remove the burr from the washita)

If fast is desired, fine india and settled in washita would be a nice combination.

I'd rather go to the grinder more often and leave the stones slower and finer cutting, though. I use the india from time to time if I'm getting lazy, or sharpening something I don't put on the grinder (like a japanese plane blade ground into a jack profile)

Very interesting, thanks for that.