Arkansas Hone Store

[Justin Edmonds]

I'm looking for a good place to buy Arkansas hones. I'm thinking of getting into straight shaving. I know that, for years, people used Arkansas hones on their razors. I'm just curious of good places to get them. I knew Dan's and natural whetstone co. Which is better, is there a better place, or would it be best to buy some from each? I know the soft and hard Arkansas stones are cheaper at NWC but some of the blacks on Dan's are cheaper. Is there a difference between the black stones at NWC and Dan's?

[bridger berdel]

sharpeningsupplies.com

[David Weaver]

If you're going to get a new stone for shaving, get a black or a translucent from dans. Nobody else has fine stones as fine, and their lapping process will have them much closer to ready for a razor than anyone else.

The translucent black from naturalwhetstone is also a good stone, but it's straight off of a much coarser lapping process and takes a long time to settle in.

There's nothing about new nortons that makes me want to use them for a razor (they aren't as good as either of the aforementioned for very fine cutting), and halls stones have flatness problems and do come fairly aggressive, too. That's pretty much all of your options that I can think of.

Here's what I actually have and have used, so true experience:
* vintage translucents and true hards, several of them
* dan's trans, dan's hard black
* naturalwhetstone black trans
* nortons trans (two different ones) and hard black

(i've tried some other unbranded newer ones, too, but it doesn't matter to mention them, they were decent, but too variable to say anything about them)

i've never tried the regular black ark from naturalwhetstone, and don't know if it's as good as the black from dans or the black trans from naturalwhetstone

[Justin Edmonds]

I know naturalwhetstone has 2 grades of black stones, 1200 and 1400 grit. They liken the 1400 to a 12000 grit Japanese. Then again, I wonder if that is just indicative of the polish.

[David Weaver]

It depends on how you use the stone. To get sharpness out of an oilstone like you'd get out of a japanese 12000 grit synthetic, you've got to have the stone settled in and use light pressure with a razor. It takes a little more skill, and the oilstone is a bit slower cutting when it's at that fineness.

[Winton Applegate]

I spent a great deal of time looking for the best Trans. Ark that I could find, price be dambed, and I bought from Dan's.
I am very pleased.

URL=http://s801.photobucket.com/user/noy...1464.jpg.html][/URL]

http://s801.photobucket.com/user/noydb1/media/IMG_1466.jpg.html][/URL]

[David Weaver]

New arks are one thing where it's worth the cost to buy what is regarded as the best. Within reason, that is.

But with norton's 8x2 full thickness (which is now less than an inch) costing $180 or whatever they want, and really being a mediocre stone (both of my norton trans, as well as a trans slip, were on the lower side of density for the finish stones I've had, and the naturalwhetstone black trans (which is really more of a dark gray translucent and not similar to a black ark) is the most dense.

A mediocre trans or black stone is very uninspiring.

I've had 11 full sized trans or black stones, and while the vintage stones are a little more interesting in terms of character, the dans stones are every bit as good in practice. The bone colored borderline trans vintage stones are my favorite, but they are very hard to find.