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My Journey Into Black Arkansas

So, as said do not limit your choice of finish or honing fluid but try everything until you find what works best for your technique, stone, and razor. Oil can easily be washed off, post honing with dish soap and a Scotch Brite sponge or short warm soapy water soak.

Arks, finishing Arks are very stone and stone face dependent. The Advent of “Modern, Black Arks” really clouds finish results as compared to Vintage Pike/Norton stones. Lapping and stone finish are even more stone dependent with new vendor offering and their fast and loose marketing making Black Ark offering even more confusing.

A lot will depend on what your expectations from the stone are. For example, are you using it strictly as a final finisher, or in an Ark progression?

Taking a near mirror finish bevel to the stone can tell you a lot about each stone finish. I have taken polished bevels, no stria CBN or metal polished bevels to stones to test different stone finishes. 50-100 laps on a pasted strop will remove all stria from a bevel, then only the finish produced by the Ark face will be on the bevel, this can save you a lot of trial-and-error frustration, though it is still a bit of work.

Lately I have been moving to a coarser grit finish, using Silicon Carbide Crystolon and India stones. I still like burnished stones for a handful of final finish laps. My experiments and results are on Vintage Norton and AG Russell stones, your “stone” may deliver completely different results.

Varying pressure can also alter results, generally I use more pressure than most naturals.

Try it all.
 
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Legion

Staff member
May first try with the black Ark.

After studying the use of a black Ark here on B&B, I have decided to hone with oil. This will be my first time honing a SR with oil. Not liking the smell of regular mineral oil, I have bought a small bottle of J&J baby oil - the pure one without additives.

I have two identical SRs available. They are Titan ACRM-2 T.H.60 SRs, each finished off 0.1μm diamond pasted balsa strops. These SRs have a steel hardness of about 60 RHC. They shave identically and I cannot tell them apart based on the shave results.
My thoughts are to refinish one of these SRs (the one with the black tail) on the white (conditioned 1200 grit) side and see how it shaves. Is that the way to go or should I include the black (conditioned 600 grit) side before the white side?

Some other questions:
  1. How do I tell when the bevels/edge have been properly finished on the Ark?
  2. What types of SRs are recommended for the 600 grit conditioned surface and what types for the 1200 grit conditioned surface?
  3. What do I do to the honing surface once I have finished the honing session; leave it as is, just wipe any excess oil off, wash with water and soap, etc.?
  4. How do I tell when the honing surface needs to be reconditioned?
That's it for now, although I expect I will have quite a few more questions.
Questions like these are not so easy to answer in this instance. If the stone was a true hard, novaculite Ark I would answer one way. If it was a Dunston type stone, which I believe it to be based on the info provided, I would give different answers, treating it more like a Welsh slate, or something of that nature. The two stone act quite differently in regards to surface prep, etc.

The people offering advise based on their experience with Dans stones, vintage translucents, and so on, are not providing relevant info that helps you with your particular stone, IMO.

For the purpose of this thread, the distinction needs to be clear, especially since people in the future buying their first Ark (or Dunston) might read it for help, and get info that does not gel with their own stone and get confused and frustrated.
 
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Questions like these are not so easy to answer in this instance. If the stone was a true hard, novaculite Ark I would answer one way. If it was a Dunston type stone, which I believe it to be based on the info provided, I would give different answers, treating it more like a Welsh slate, or something of that nature. The two stone act quite differently in regards to surface prep, etc.

The people offering advise based on their experience with Dans stones, vintage translucents, and so on, are not providing relevant info that helps you with your particular stone, IMO.

For the purpose of this thread, the distinction needs to be clear.

Agree 100%.
 
For the purpose of this thread, the distinction needs to be clear, especially since people in the future buying their first Ark (or Dunston) might be read it for help and get info that does not gel with their own stone and get frustrated.

This sounds like an excellent use case for a wiki page, or pages.

As someone who has a slate, and an Ark on the way, I've been following this thread and would love to be able to farm the answers and create a page that would be useful for others who head down this path.
 
Questions like these are not so easy to answer in this instance. If the stone was a true hard, novaculite Ark I would answer one way. If it was a Dunston type stone, which I believe it to be based on the info provided, I would give different answers, treating it more like a Welsh slate, or something of that nature. The two stone act quite differently in regards to surface prep, etc.

The people offering advise based on their experience with Dans stones, vintage translucents, and so on, are not providing relevant info that helps you with your particular stone, IMO.

For the purpose of this thread, the distinction needs to be clear, especially since people in the future buying their first Ark (or Dunston) might be read it for help and get info that does not gel with their own stone and get confused and frustrated.
Excellent point. How would he go about figuring out if it is novaculite or not? Granted the reported SG is right at the top end for novaculite and at the lower end for slates (not sure what the Dunston's composition is exactly).

Try to flake off a piece and see what the fracture pattern looks like? (Not a serious suggestion although it would be useful data).
 

Legion

Staff member
This sounds like an excellent use case for a wiki page, or pages.

As someone who has a slate, and an Ark on the way, I've been following this thread and would love to be able to farm the answers and create a page that would be useful for others who head down this path.
Good idea.
 

Legion

Staff member
Excellent point. How would he go about figuring out if it is novaculite or not? Granted the reported SG is right at the top end for novaculite and at the lower end for slates (not sure what the Dunston's composition is exactly).

Try to flake off a piece and see what the fracture pattern looks like? (Not a serious suggestion although it would be useful data).
It's not necessarily high for novaculite per se (it would be normal for, say, an Idwall) but it is very high for an Arkansas. Also the physical hardness would be different, but again, hard to judge unless you have experienced the other type to compare.

I guess the most important thing is to put out there the fact that there are at least two different stones being sold as "Black Arkansas", and that they perform differently, so people can be informed when they are buying. As Gamma said earlier, this has been a source of frustration and annoyance for buyers in the past, but it is still not widely known.
 

Legion

Staff member
Thank you to all who have tried to guide me. Looks like I will be on my own as I know not what my black Arkansas whetstone is.

I will just try my best on my own to see what works with this whetstone.
One thing you could try, though it will not be infallible. Take a strong light source and try to see if there's any translucency to the stone. A black Ark might have some, a slate stone should not.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
.... A black Ark might have some, a slate stone should not.
"Might" would not be good enough. If it has no translucency, it still could be a true black Arkansas whetstone. All the guidance I receive could then still be wrong. Best I just go my own way.

All I really know is that the whetstone is black in colour, has a SG of 2.72 and is awfully hard. I can't even guarantee that it came from Arkansas. I only have the word of the vendor that it is a black ultra-fine Arkansas whetstone.

Lesson learnt is to never buy a second-hand black Arkansas whetstone as you never really know what it is. This makes second-hand one virtually worthless.
 

Legion

Staff member
"Might" would not be good enough. If it has no translucency, it still could be a true black Arkansas whetstone. All the guidance I receive could then still be wrong. Best I just go my own way.

All I really know is that the whetstone is black in colour, has a SG of 2.72 and is awfully hard. I can't even guarantee that it came from Arkansas. I only have the word of the vendor that it is a black ultra-fine Arkansas whetstone.

Lesson learnt is to never buy a second-hand black Arkansas whetstone as you never really know what it is. This makes second-hand one virtually worthless.
Yeah, unless you know and trust the source, it is certainly a gamble. I'd buy one from some of the guys here with lots of experience in these things, but probably not from some random on the internet. Not unless it was so cheap it was worth the gamble.

Lot's of us here make a hobby of gambling on crusty, oil soaked mystery hones, hoping to get lucky with a bargain. But we certainly don't pay anything like the money you would for an identified stone with pedigree. And although we do get the odd win, and more as you get lots of experience, you also end up with a shed full of clunkers.
 
"Might" would not be good enough. If it has no translucency, it still could be a true black Arkansas whetstone. All the guidance I receive could then still be wrong. Best I just go my own way.

All I really know is that the whetstone is black in colour, has a SG of 2.72 and is awfully hard. I can't even guarantee that it came from Arkansas. I only have the word of the vendor that it is a black ultra-fine Arkansas whetstone.

Lesson learnt is to never buy a second-hand black Arkansas whetstone as you never really know what it is. This makes second-hand one virtually worthless.

The only way to know for sure is to properly prep the surface and give it a try.

I found a flat rock just out and about, seemed hard and dense, so I took it home, flattened and lapped it. With a nice nagura it will finish a razor. My friend liked and he really wanted a hand sized koppa so I gave it to him.

On the other end of the spectrum you have legitimate black Arks that are just low quality, and despite being a real black Ark, are not razor finishers. Naturals have to evaluated individually.
 
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"Might" would not be good enough. If it has no translucency, it still could be a true black Arkansas whetstone. All the guidance I receive could then still be wrong. Best I just go my own way.

All I really know is that the whetstone is black in colour, has a SG of 2.72 and is awfully hard. I can't even guarantee that it came from Arkansas. I only have the word of the vendor that it is a black ultra-fine Arkansas whetstone.

Lesson learnt is to never buy a second-hand black Arkansas whetstone as you never really know what it is. This makes second-hand one virtually worthless.
Wait until you start hunting for a Jnat.
 
" Wait until you start hunting for a Jnat."

“I very much doubt that that will happen. I am now rather put off natural whetstones.”


All natural stones are variable and can perform differently from one side to the other, there was no quality control over the millions of years it took to make them. Purchase can be a gamble as to performance.

All that matters is performance, keeping in mind that for Arks, other Novaculites and other hard stones, stone face prep can make a big difference.

I have bought many black greasy stones of unknow origin, most from Garage Sales and Swap meets for a dollar or two or a bit more, (I was pretty sure what they were) and many from Auction sites online, many clunkers but many are gems. It is how it goes with naturals.

Arks are no different, Jnats, Slates and Coticules are a roll of the dice. All that matters is performance, can you massage the stone face flat and to a grit level or finish or slurry that will perform for you. And if it performs, who cares what it is called or its composition or how you make slurry?

If you give up on naturals, you give up a lot of potential great shaves. Nothing synthetic compares to a good Ark or Jnat edge.
 
I allow myself to bring my 2 cents.

Anyone who already has several stones of the same family (coticule, slate, jnat, Ark,...) will have already noticed that they already produce different results.

By dint of paying attention to the stones, we forget the essential.
Whatever the stone (natural, synthetic) whatever your honing and stropping technique, the shaving result will come from the 15-20µm of steel at the end of the blade which will cut the hairs. There's no magic in it, just mechanical physics.
Once you stop looking at the finger pointing to the moon and look at the moon again, things become much simpler and more robust to getting the shave you want. Whatever the tools (stone) and techniques that allow you to get there.
 
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