Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
The black slate caused me some razorburn! I thought I had a razor sharp enough to shave the back of my neck with...well, it was sharp enough to cut the hair just fine, but the edge was ragged enough to make my neck look like someone raked it with a very fine garden rake...dark red burn that lasted several days. It would be a nice precurser to a finishing slate.
I have a stone that looks very much like the black one. Mine is purplish-black. It's a wierd combination of waxy and gritty. It's gives more of a burnishing polish with deeper scratches in the signature. It sorta works on woodworking tools as a touch-up stone, used with pulling strokes. A push stroke has a tendency to cut into the stone.

Are these black arkansas or some other kind of stone?