Advice on choosing some Arkansas stones

[Mike Rother]

Hi all
need to purchase a coarse and fine Arkansas stone for carving gouge sharpening.

Im looking at these:
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/s...NO-CHRISPYE.XX

They seem a little pricey but since I'm a noob when it comes to oilstones, what do I know?
any other stones I should be considering?

thanks

[Jim Koepke]

My recollection is David Weaver suggested danswhetstone.com/

A translucent slipstone and triangle stone were ordered. I am very happy with them.

Hopefully David will jump on board with his recommendation.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Dans whetstone for fine stones, natural whetstone for natural softs, Norton for India and crystolon.

Washita stones are also
a good choice for soft stones, but they must be vintage.

I don't really see the value in the pye branded stones, they are high for what you get. Everything that is pye signature is high. But I guess everything signature anywhere is high.

I don't carve that much, but I do pretty much use only stones on my gouges (a practice that professional carvers don't seem to do). I've used bench arkansas stones and a couple of multiform slips (find one that has a decent sharp edge) for everything. For the oddball thing you'd need where the edge is really acute, I think I'd rather make a wooden slip and load it with compound. It would be the inside of the bevel on something, anyway.

There's a dan's second translucent on their specials page (they sell their seconds at a discount) that if someone doesn't buy it shortly after they open this morning, I'm going to.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I second Dave's recomendation. I especially like the 'hard' from Natural whetstone, it's a coarse stone like the soft, but just a bit harder\less poroes and dosen't clog as much as the soft does. that is at least true for the stone that I got. on carbon steels is cuts almost as fast as my india stone.


Dan's whetstone finish thier stones to a super high level, I think it's worth the extra for the fine stones. I haven't used a fine ark from anyone else, I can tell the black ark I got from Dan's is a strong cutter and gives a Great woodworking edge.

[David Weaver]

I second Dave's recomendation. I especially like the 'hard' from Natural whetstone, it's a coarse stone like the soft, but just a bit harder\less poroes and dosen't clog as much as the soft does. that is at least true for the stone that I got. on carbon steels is cuts almost as fast as my india stone.


Dan's whetstone finish thier stones to a super high level, I think it's worth the extra for the fine stones. I haven't used a fine ark from anyone else, I can tell the black ark I got from Dan's is a strong cutter and gives a Great woodworking edge.

I like the hard from NW also. It's not really like a hard, it's just a slightly finer soft. Natural whetstone also has a very dense gray translucent that they call "black translucent" and if someone is looking for a first quality 8x2 full thickness stone, it might be the least expensive ($119). It requires a little bit of conditioning, though, as it cuts aggressively at first (it doesn't take long to do that conditioning, but it doesn't need to be done on dans stones).

[David Weaver]

I guess nobody moved fast enough of on the trans stones on the specials page.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I guess nobody moved fast enough of on the trans stones on the specials page.

I thought about it.... but decided It's too much for me unless I had some extra cash just laying around, though I would like a finisher that is a full 2" wide and not 1 5\8 .
I good a good system going with my choseras now, clean and easy, I seem to just back and forth as I discover how each system works. I'm also breaking in my eze-lap fine, I think I like that one as a 1K ! funny enough, I hardly ever use the Gukomyo 10K, it's redundent. is does make a smoother seemingly sharper edge than anything, but I don't feel it's worth extra effort, because the edge of a chosera3K\black ark and even off the NW hard and strop does everything perfectly and it faster to use.

[David Weaver]

I sold my gok 20k a couple of days ago and shipped it. I know that it is for sure keener on tools than anything that I have, and it's super hard. I don't, however, have plans to use much other than natural stones for quite some time, and I think I might actually be able to say that I have everything in stones that I'll ever want. a large sell-off is coming up sometime to fund my beech and make me feel better about what it's costing to get it. Buying a trans dans stone when I already have two vintage trans stones is sort of counter intuitive, but i had a 1/2" wide version of that trans that I sold to someone on here a long time ago and I always regretted selling it.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I hear you, there are some items that you just want to have for some reason or another, regardless of if you'll actually use or need them. I feel that way about my 1.2K sigma, just something about it I don't think I could replace it, same thing for a India stone, I may hardly use it, but I'll always want one in my collection, but I do find uses for them when I'm in the mood or for tools like router plane blades and such. I think one could argue that having a selection is a big + because one might not avoid sharpening when he can use whatsoever he is in the mood for, I often felt with my kings... "man I just don't have the energy for those messy things right now". also different stone, different method, I like developing these skills.

Nice Avatar B T W !

[Jim Koepke]

There is a bit of redundancy in my stones. This does allow for some stones to be used differently than others. Gouges are kind of rough on water stones. Some of the duplicates are used on gouges where they may develop troughs from different sized gouges.

Now comes winter with the temps in my shop too cold for water to stay liquid. This means pretty soon my oilstones will do most of the honing until spring rolls around.

In a shop where one is only sharpening chisel and plane blades a single system for sharpening can make a lot of sense. In a shop where one is sharpening everything from axes to razors and all things in between it may be better to have a few different ways to abrade steel.

Last night an old dull kitchen knife was started out on my 1K water stone going through the grits to the 8K and finished on my smoothest hard Arkansas. Worked fine slicing up some tomatoes after the honing. This is just a cheap grocery store paring knife we bought one time when we were camping.

jtk

[Mike Rother]

Thanks all. My heads swimming a little with all the various grades and names for these oilstones.
In the end I need a coarse and fine. This is from Dans:

Soft Arkansas (Medium) is the most popular of the grades of Novaculite. It is an all-purpose stone used by woodcarvers, sportsmen, butchers, commercial knife sharpeners and even housewives. This stone is used by people who desire keen, sharp edge on their knives and tools in a minimum amount of time. Soft Arkansas stones may be white, gray and black, or pink and gray in color.

Hard Arkansas (Fine) is most suitable for fine polishing and the maintenance of a fine edge on knives or tools. Hard Arkansas is often referred to as "White Hard." However, users should be aware that Hard Arkansas often has color variations also. To our knowledge, this color does not interfere with the honing process by any means. Hard Arkansas stones are popular among woodcrafters and a variety of industries including the dental industry.

would this Medium and fine do me?

Thanks again from a water stone guy.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I'd wait for someone who has tried the 'Hard' from Dan's to report if is indeed a Hard stone or just a denser version of a Soft ark. The Term hard is loosely used now days.


If it is truly a Hard stone, the setup you suggest should be fine, however it has been said here many times the the soft ark from natural whetstone is better than Dan's.
I have both the soft and hard from natural whetstone, the hard is just a denser version of the soft, and it cuts better too.


So I would buy:


"Hard" from natural whetstone, this will be your 1K
Hard (if is it indeed hard) or True Hard\Trans\Black from Dan's.


I would also get a Fine or Medium India stone.


Remember you'll need to learn how to get the best of them, don't try to work large areas of steel like you might with a waterstone and be prepared to work with the stone, it's strengths and limitations.

[David Weaver]

There's a substantial difference between what dans sells as hard vs what they sell as true hard. Their inexpensive hard has a little bit of bite, but the true hard stones like the black, trans and colored true hards do not.

The term hard used to only apply to stones like black and translucent stones.

[Tom M King]

Halls slices some nice stones too. I have a set that I bought from Smith's in 1973. Two of them got broken by a tornado hitting my shop in 1988. After using the broken ones for years, I finally got a set of bigger ones from Hall's. They also made a special set of slipstones for me. They are at least as nice as the old Smith's.

[David Weaver]

The only reason I didn't mention halls is because at one time they were inexpensive but horribly out of flat. I have heard a little better things about their flatness, but they have gone way up in price since then. It may very well be that their price has gone up to reflect what they say on their web page (that they are now finishing the stones and guaranteeing they're flatness, or ensuring I guess is the word they use).

The underlying quality of the halls stones is good, though, but it's hard to take advantage of them if they aren't flat.

I had a 12x3 black stone that I lapped for hours with a 220 grit diamond hone, and in the end, when I sold it, I had a working area that was flat of about 9x2 1/2 or 10x 2 1/2. Chris Griggs had also gotten a black stone somewhere around then and spent gobs of effort finally getting it flat.

The good part was that entire gigantic stone was $90 delivered. I'd use coarse loose grit now if I had it, but I didn't know that back then.

NW and Dans are always flat and can be used out of the box. If a big 12x3x1 halls was still that price, and the smaller stones commensurately cheaper, I'd probably still buy another one and do the work to flatten it, but not now based on their new prices. The place that used to sell them discount when I bought mine has stopped carrying them, too. It was knife merchant, I believe. They had a 12x3x1 translucent for $170 shipped back then, too. That's uncommon, and for about the price of a 8x2 stone, now. the black stone that I got for $90 shipped is now $291 and the big trans is $360 or something.

In reality, though, any stones from any of the suppliers can be made to work well.