I've been meaning to post this for a while, and finally got around to pulling out all my arkies and taking a few pics. I don't use mine as much as Papa Fish or Alum of Potash, but I think I have almost as much love for them as they do. There's really something magical about a translucent arkie. I've always been fascinated by rocks and just used to collect the interesting looking ones as a kid and keep them in a drawer. Lots of those were, as I learned later in a "rocks for jocks" class in college (fyi, I was no jock...it was an editorial on the stringency of the intellectual demands made on us to pass the course) quartz and mica. When I discovered arkies and learned I had a stone both beautiful AND functional, the excuse to collect them carried much more weight.
Below is a pic of all of my arkies. Modest compared to many of you guys which I count as something of an accomplishment. It's hard to resist buying them so every time I pass one up I pat myself on the back. I have three current favorites (more on that below), one of which is on loan to another member. It's a smallish surgical black that is absolutely glass smooth and was the first arkie I owned. My only complaint is its thinness which makes it tricky to hold. I've also sold a couple, but only to friends and only for what I paid for them. This truly is an AD as I don't like to part with even the ones that haven't been used...yet.
Here's the family:
The big stone in the upper left is a Washita. A lily white, I think. It had lots of oil in it and took me weeks to get that out. The smell still permeates the wood. Ashamed to admit that while I've cleaned and lapped it, I've not used it yet. It requires starting at the beginning of the learning curve and just at the point where I'm beginning to get some real special edges with the Jnats and Nagura I've got, that would have been too demoralizing. My learning style is to make every possible mistake first and then do it right. (A heritable trait, it seems, as I watch my teenage son's development), so I've not had the psychic wherewithal to give it a go. I feel the itch to try, but no scratching as yet.
Here's a closer pic:
I've posted pics before of the bench size translucent below the Washita. Spent several hours lapping and smoothing that one, but it's riddled through with fissures and there's one fissure on the side you see there that's still catching the edge. Not sure if it can be saved or not. Might have to be cut in half which is something I've never done or I might just keep it as is because it's such a beautiful and unique stone.
With this pic, things get a little embarrassing. Except for the very small Norton in the lower right, I've not used any of these arkies. The little one I used when it first came on my son's pocket knife. I actually got it to cut arm hair. The top left surgical black from Woodcraft is NOS and I've not touched it. I've got this weird thing about NOS iitems that prevents me from using them. In this case, I had a stone from AG Russell that came within a few days of this one and while nearly unused, was not completely unused (The one you see here still has an instruction pamphlet). They looked nearly identical and so I used and prepped the AG Russell which turned out to be a fantastic stone. That's one of the few I've sold and were it not for the fact that the new owner loves it as much as I did, would be experiencing regret over the sale.
So why wouldn't I have tested these stones yet? It's beyond my modest descriptive powers to explain the degree of prep and difficulty getting a hard arkie into razor honing shape. First of all, may the gods help you if it ain't flat. Getting one flat and chamfered on the edges, for the upper body, is better than any gym routine. They eat the very best W/D sandpaper like chiclets and even the slightest bit out of true and you're talking hours of work. For those of you interested in trying anyway, I have two suggestions: SiC powder is quick and effective for flattening. Only way to go. It's less effective, however for smoothing. More on that later. The other tip is that I've found w/d grrits at 1k and up seem to work faster than the lower grits. It might be because there's more total abrasive in contact with the stone or because I was having fatigue hallucinations, but check it out for yourself.
All of this is by way of excusing myself for not having tested these stones yet. The challenge with arkies, as a final finisher, is that flatness is not enough; they need to be smooth as well. The smoother they are, it seems, the finer the result is for your edge. The only way to get the smoothness is with use. I've got an old chef's knife that's our main kitchen knife. It dates back to marriage number 1 over 25 years ago. It's had literally thousands of laps on the arkies in our house and never been sharper and while it gets sharp, the arkies get smooth. Nonetheless, it's a process which takes thousands and thousands of laps.
I suppose since the arkie waited millions of years for us to get it out of the mountains, it's fair that it should make us wait a few years before really giving up the goods. Thus is balance restored.
The favorites:
Like most of my gear, these two are vintage stones mined, almost certainly, before I was born. The one on the left is permanently mounted in the box which is a neat little handmade holder that someone obviously took great care and skill to build. This one gets the bulk of my honing which is unfair to the others, but it's such a joy to work with.. Any of you who have had one of my razors got an edge which was almost certainly finished on this one. The other arkie, also a translucent, is a supremely cool stone. If it were a jazz musician, it would be Miles Davis. Hiistorically, most arkies sold were finished on all sides. Somehow this one went out with an unfinished backside.
You can almost see the geology being formed millions of years ago in the impressions on the back of this stone. Besides being lovely to look at and unique, it gives an edge just as fine a finish as the other arkie. I really cannot tell the difference. The color difference between this stone and the other ones is an object of much discussion. Some people believe that arkies yellow over time (as a result of exposure) which would indicate that this is the older stone. I don't think that's the case. At least, not the case with exposure to air. You'll see some rocks change color with exposure, but they typically have iron in them which oxidizes. Arkies have very little in the way of other trace elements and not enough iron, I believe, to change the color of the stone. Sun irradiation is a possibility, but that requires years of outdoor exposure which suggests that the rock was mined off an exposed ledge and was the color it is now at the moment of it's quarrying. If anyone has any actual data on this, I'd love to read it.
While this was an expensive stone, it was still much cheaper than any Jnat I've bought and every bit as beautiful. Unfortunately, posts like this one are destroying the price points for vintage arkies and I've seen some lately go for Jnat prices. This is crazy considering that quality translucent arkansas stones are still being mined and so supply/demand ratio should be dampening prices. Guys like Alum of Potash are the Heroes in this case because they are using new stones while evildoers like myself insist on vintage ones and continue to drive pricing up.
That leads me to the last two stones in the next post.
(cont)
Below is a pic of all of my arkies. Modest compared to many of you guys which I count as something of an accomplishment. It's hard to resist buying them so every time I pass one up I pat myself on the back. I have three current favorites (more on that below), one of which is on loan to another member. It's a smallish surgical black that is absolutely glass smooth and was the first arkie I owned. My only complaint is its thinness which makes it tricky to hold. I've also sold a couple, but only to friends and only for what I paid for them. This truly is an AD as I don't like to part with even the ones that haven't been used...yet.
Here's the family:
The big stone in the upper left is a Washita. A lily white, I think. It had lots of oil in it and took me weeks to get that out. The smell still permeates the wood. Ashamed to admit that while I've cleaned and lapped it, I've not used it yet. It requires starting at the beginning of the learning curve and just at the point where I'm beginning to get some real special edges with the Jnats and Nagura I've got, that would have been too demoralizing. My learning style is to make every possible mistake first and then do it right. (A heritable trait, it seems, as I watch my teenage son's development), so I've not had the psychic wherewithal to give it a go. I feel the itch to try, but no scratching as yet.
Here's a closer pic:
I've posted pics before of the bench size translucent below the Washita. Spent several hours lapping and smoothing that one, but it's riddled through with fissures and there's one fissure on the side you see there that's still catching the edge. Not sure if it can be saved or not. Might have to be cut in half which is something I've never done or I might just keep it as is because it's such a beautiful and unique stone.
With this pic, things get a little embarrassing. Except for the very small Norton in the lower right, I've not used any of these arkies. The little one I used when it first came on my son's pocket knife. I actually got it to cut arm hair. The top left surgical black from Woodcraft is NOS and I've not touched it. I've got this weird thing about NOS iitems that prevents me from using them. In this case, I had a stone from AG Russell that came within a few days of this one and while nearly unused, was not completely unused (The one you see here still has an instruction pamphlet). They looked nearly identical and so I used and prepped the AG Russell which turned out to be a fantastic stone. That's one of the few I've sold and were it not for the fact that the new owner loves it as much as I did, would be experiencing regret over the sale.
So why wouldn't I have tested these stones yet? It's beyond my modest descriptive powers to explain the degree of prep and difficulty getting a hard arkie into razor honing shape. First of all, may the gods help you if it ain't flat. Getting one flat and chamfered on the edges, for the upper body, is better than any gym routine. They eat the very best W/D sandpaper like chiclets and even the slightest bit out of true and you're talking hours of work. For those of you interested in trying anyway, I have two suggestions: SiC powder is quick and effective for flattening. Only way to go. It's less effective, however for smoothing. More on that later. The other tip is that I've found w/d grrits at 1k and up seem to work faster than the lower grits. It might be because there's more total abrasive in contact with the stone or because I was having fatigue hallucinations, but check it out for yourself.
All of this is by way of excusing myself for not having tested these stones yet. The challenge with arkies, as a final finisher, is that flatness is not enough; they need to be smooth as well. The smoother they are, it seems, the finer the result is for your edge. The only way to get the smoothness is with use. I've got an old chef's knife that's our main kitchen knife. It dates back to marriage number 1 over 25 years ago. It's had literally thousands of laps on the arkies in our house and never been sharper and while it gets sharp, the arkies get smooth. Nonetheless, it's a process which takes thousands and thousands of laps.
I suppose since the arkie waited millions of years for us to get it out of the mountains, it's fair that it should make us wait a few years before really giving up the goods. Thus is balance restored.
The favorites:
Like most of my gear, these two are vintage stones mined, almost certainly, before I was born. The one on the left is permanently mounted in the box which is a neat little handmade holder that someone obviously took great care and skill to build. This one gets the bulk of my honing which is unfair to the others, but it's such a joy to work with.. Any of you who have had one of my razors got an edge which was almost certainly finished on this one. The other arkie, also a translucent, is a supremely cool stone. If it were a jazz musician, it would be Miles Davis. Hiistorically, most arkies sold were finished on all sides. Somehow this one went out with an unfinished backside.
You can almost see the geology being formed millions of years ago in the impressions on the back of this stone. Besides being lovely to look at and unique, it gives an edge just as fine a finish as the other arkie. I really cannot tell the difference. The color difference between this stone and the other ones is an object of much discussion. Some people believe that arkies yellow over time (as a result of exposure) which would indicate that this is the older stone. I don't think that's the case. At least, not the case with exposure to air. You'll see some rocks change color with exposure, but they typically have iron in them which oxidizes. Arkies have very little in the way of other trace elements and not enough iron, I believe, to change the color of the stone. Sun irradiation is a possibility, but that requires years of outdoor exposure which suggests that the rock was mined off an exposed ledge and was the color it is now at the moment of it's quarrying. If anyone has any actual data on this, I'd love to read it.
While this was an expensive stone, it was still much cheaper than any Jnat I've bought and every bit as beautiful. Unfortunately, posts like this one are destroying the price points for vintage arkies and I've seen some lately go for Jnat prices. This is crazy considering that quality translucent arkansas stones are still being mined and so supply/demand ratio should be dampening prices. Guys like Alum of Potash are the Heroes in this case because they are using new stones while evildoers like myself insist on vintage ones and continue to drive pricing up.
That leads me to the last two stones in the next post.
(cont)
