Not sure Kees, I don't use a great deal of Western Red Cedar, not sure if I have any here in the rack. If I do I will did it out and give it a try/
Not sure Kees, I don't use a great deal of Western Red Cedar, not sure if I have any here in the rack. If I do I will did it out and give it a try/
I'd imagine you can. You can still shave hair off of your arm easily. Very easily. I know what you're saying about the earlywood, though - it's like a pile of dust between hard walls just waiting to ruin your day. The driest thing I've planed, though, has been old pine and some quartered cherry that wasn't properly dried and has very dusty crumbly early wood. Still planes up to a shine.
I think the closest thing to a lilywhite in terms of edge finish would be an inexpensive "hard" arkansas from natural whetstone. All of the stone makers seem to have somewhat different stones when you get below the non-porous level. NW's hard will break in, but it's still got quite a bit of porosity. It is, of course, not as desirable to use as a lilywhite, but it's a lot cheaper. I haven't liked anything of dan's that wasn't their hardest stones (which aren't going to work for this), but their hardest stones are great.
Chosera 3k is good, it would give a few hones before needing a regrind.
I think probably a lot of the 5 micron type 3000/4000 stones that are floating around would be able to do it. I'd rather use a natural stone, though, because of how well the edge responds to a bare leather strop.
If spyderco made something between their medium and fine, it would do it - you could let it settle in like an oilstone.
David,
Not being a rust hunter, do you have any suggestions for vendors of new Arkansas stones? I came across this place http://www.naturalwhetstone.com/aboutus.htm
Any comment on their products?
Maurice
There is less effort in using the washita than there was even with using two shapton stones. As graham stated, I think some folks might find it illuminating. Where it would be especially illuminating would be for the folks who move toward using old vintage stuff they've boxed up, and use it with a stone and strop that it was designed for. It becomes instantly more interesting when you find out how well the vintage stuff, an oilstone and a bare leather strop work together.
The downside might be fear that the surface finish will suffer, but on cherry (which is probably the most common hand tooler wood here), the finish at common pitch off of the washita is still better than any finish on cherry at 55 degrees. So that goes out the window. Where the whole process would be most detrimental would be for the power toolers who have adopted only hard and exotic stuff (1800 janka +) and only smoothing something a power tool has already prepared.
I know you do more than just power plane and run out ripples, but you might be on the wrong side of the hardness spectrum with all of that quasi metal you guys call wood down there.
What I've found so far is that I wouldn't use an aluminum oxide finish stone because it's just not fast enough.
What's also been illuminating is that I can get quite a lot of work out of a stock stanley iron before I go back to the stone for a refresher, and the grinding of such an iron is 4x as fast, the chips come out faster on the rare occasion you neglected to notice dirt on a board, and when you go down the rabbit hole of mostly hand dimensioning that I've gone down, it isn't an issue to want to be able to take 1200 feet of 1 thousandth thick shavings instead of 900.
I have literally cast off every modern iron except the muji irons (because I don't have anything else that fits them, and on the rare occasion that I use them, I do cheat - I'll eventually find cast steel irons that will go in them, though).
But to be clear, I'm using a single stone and vintage irons now because it's faster and easier, not to fiddle. It wasn't faster and easier at first, I had to learn the stone better, but it has become faster and easier.
I also wish I wouldn't have willy nilly just replaced every bad iron in planes I sold to people as a courtesy so they'd have a good iron, because I now have a #7 sized plane that will need a new iron and literally gave away all of my good vintage stanley irons. I may end up having to make a #7 bench plane iron out of O1 so I can control how it ends up.
The biggest negative thought that I have about this whole process, actually, is that the washita is absolutely the ideal stone for it, but they have become an absolute ripoff on the used market and someone who will always be married to a jig and modern stones may instantly find out it's not for them and get stuck holding a stone after the excitement wore off. I don't mind wasting my money, but if I suggest something and someone else's money is wasted based on my advice, it's unacceptable.
All of their stones are decent. I haven't used their black stone, but maybe someone else could clarify whether or not it's any good. I actually have one of their "black translucent" stones and find it just to be a gray translucent and not at all like a black ark.
I'd buy fine stones at dan's, they've got the best non-vintage fine stones I have seen bar none.
But for hard arks and anything softer, I'd buy something from NW. If I was buying their hard again, I would call the guy and ask him if he'd cut me one 8x2 or so. I bought a soft (that I sold to archie...I wonder if he would like to sell it back....), a hard, which is coarser than a vintage hard, and the black translucent. They've all been good. when you get to the true hard stones (the high density white, black and translucent stones) there's not a huge big deal of difference between vendors. When you buy soft arks and hard arks that don't cross into the non-porous territory, there's a gigantic difference between the stones from different vendors, attributable I guess to what's in their mines.
For anyone else wanting to go along with this, use of the double iron properly in a vintage plane makes this whole deal a twaddle. It's worth learning as part of this - tearout becomes unassociated with the level of plane sharpness, so even as you're fiddling around before your stone settles in, you won't have to deal with tearout or ruined pieces.
Thanks for reminding me about Dan's. Just went to his site and noticed this:While 6x2 may not be sublime, it's still a good deal, wouldn't you agree?** Special ** Hard Select (fine) 6 x 2 x 3/4-1 Mounted Bench Stones $30.00 while supplies last **
Maurice
Yeah, that's a good deal. It might be too fine, but if it is, you can scuff it.
Funny that there's a parallel thread going on about finding a middle stone to bridge the gap between a 2000 and 16000. Different strokes . . .
Steve
I also found it very liberating. takes me half the time and is always good. if it's not good enough it's 30 seconds to go back to the stone.
I think you don't have to use such a fine stone if your going to use compound on the strop, I get really good edged from my sigma 1.2k + compound on a strop, but I don't
know how well this would work with a hollow grind which is sensitive to strop work. I use a convex bevel as of last week.
I think there is smoothing to be said for using the finest stone you can to reach the burr if it's speedy.
tried it today while I was out of home. all I had was a new cerax combo stone 1000\3000 grit (more than enough but no strop). went straight to the 3000, then stropped on my pants (fabric not jeans), got a really good edge, shaved hair (whatever I have left of it) without a sound and a light touch. however if the blade needs a lot of work to get a burr I'm not sure the 3000 has enough cutting power, it's a surprisingly "burnisher" stone, especially considering the 6000 is soft and rough.
Yeah, that might be a good stone for a one stone type of thing.
I traveled to the site, too, and just bought three things and had several back and forth conversations with them about various stones. I wish someone could figure out how to get them into the claim that has the pike stones.