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- #21
They've done about 8 hours soaking, iim out of simple green now.
Any ideas what these are? Bonus ark and coti love welcomed!
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- #22
Apparently wife bought a gallon of simple green, nice! Back to the soak.
The large dished one is a Washita - I'd be 99% certain on that - should get lighter after degreasing.
The other I would guess (with far less certainty) is a Fine India; it looks like one, and they're dense, and clink.
The other I would guess (with far less certainty) is a Fine India; it looks like one, and they're dense, and clink.
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- #24
Yeah i thought the one in the box might be a fine inda, I've never used them. It's definitely fine. It feels like porcelain and has a REALLY high clink. If the other is a washita then i scored because ive wanted one for tools. I order a lot recently that i think has a couple in it.
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- #25
I thought i had gotten most everything off during its first soak but it's still lightening up. You can see the darker end that was out of the simple green.
With very oily/dirty stones sometimes they need to be soaked for weeks if not months. I've just pulled a Washita from a tub of Simple Green I've had in there for about 10 weeks. You can get them to look almost new and then any swarf on the surface can be lapped out.
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- #28
This is its progression this afternoon. Would you still bet on washita? Because if so i'll count it as a definite win after i try it out. Ive never used an India oil stone, what would the effective grit be for a fine one?
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It is one, yes. Always a nice find, congrats! Though have fun lapping it... 
By all means use it for tools, just as long as you know you're giving them the very best. A Washita may not be as fine as a hard black or translucent, but it many ways it's a superior stone. The range of a good one can be astonishing, like no other stone anywhere. Very good fine natural stones are comparatively common; you won't find a jnat that can do 1k as well as a synthetic, but a Washita will, and the same stone might finish at 7k. The only things comparable I know are old Turkish, which are even quicker, but don't tend to have the low end that a Washita does. Right up there with greatest stones ever quarried, for my money.
(I concede that you probably have nicer tools, and look after them better than I do! But it's not something you should see as 'just' for tools.)
By all means use it for tools, just as long as you know you're giving them the very best. A Washita may not be as fine as a hard black or translucent, but it many ways it's a superior stone. The range of a good one can be astonishing, like no other stone anywhere. Very good fine natural stones are comparatively common; you won't find a jnat that can do 1k as well as a synthetic, but a Washita will, and the same stone might finish at 7k. The only things comparable I know are old Turkish, which are even quicker, but don't tend to have the low end that a Washita does. Right up there with greatest stones ever quarried, for my money.
(I concede that you probably have nicer tools, and look after them better than I do! But it's not something you should see as 'just' for tools.)
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- #30
While i don't really have nice tools, they are mine and are the way i feed my family so i take great stock in maintaining them well. I dabble in everything from metal/ wood/ leather/ stone working and id love to get better at them i know technique can only take you so far with poorly maintained tools. I hope that from my "jack of all trade" skill set from working in maintenance that my son will find his passion and pursue it. Id like to have the basics he'll need to get going. After feeling the stone and its feedback, it's amazing to me that you can do low end work on it because this stone feels really fine and dense. I really appreciate the replies and info on his stone, i can talk about new hones for months. The India stone has me intrigued also, i feel it'll be an amazing tradesman's stone.It is one, yes. Always a nice find, congrats! Though have fun lapping it...
By all means use it for tools, just as long as you know you're giving them the very best. A Washita may not be as fine as a hard black or translucent, but it many ways it's a superior stone. The range of a good one can be astonishing, like no other stone anywhere. Very good fine natural stones are comparatively common; you won't find a jnat that can do 1k as well as a synthetic, but a Washita will, and the same stone might finish at 7k. The only things comparable I know are old Turkish, which are even quicker, but don't tend to have the low end that a Washita does. Right up there with greatest stones ever quarried, for my money.
(I concede that you probably have nicer tools, and look after them better than I do! But it's not something you should see as 'just' for tools.)
Also - the speed that it cleaned up with simple green suggests to me that it's probably quite a soft/porous example. Which btw is a good thing, imo. It's softer ones that really shine, and have that very large range. Though other people may know more / disagree with me about this.
Fine India is a very good stone too, though people won't talk about them as much, as they're not naturals. It may feel finer atm, but they're not as fine as a Washita. I think they're supposed to be around 600 grit, but in practice seem to work a little higher for me - maybe 800. Funnily enough I just tried an old stone that I just cleaned up, which I thought might be a FI, and having used it am pretty sure it is. That'd be very tools too if it is one.
(p.s. This is as much down to my internet as anything else but - the number of large pics on this page is making it quite slow for me to load, and tricky to read. So maybe an idea to keep some as thumbnails
)
Fine India is a very good stone too, though people won't talk about them as much, as they're not naturals. It may feel finer atm, but they're not as fine as a Washita. I think they're supposed to be around 600 grit, but in practice seem to work a little higher for me - maybe 800. Funnily enough I just tried an old stone that I just cleaned up, which I thought might be a FI, and having used it am pretty sure it is. That'd be very tools too if it is one.
(p.s. This is as much down to my internet as anything else but - the number of large pics on this page is making it quite slow for me to load, and tricky to read. So maybe an idea to keep some as thumbnails
)Definitely looks like a washita, nice find. Fine india stones run around 400 grit on the ANSI scale which is something like a 700 grit Japanese waterstone. When worn in they can act quite a bit finer and can be used as a bevel setter but there are so many better stone out there for that job. I'd really just relegate the Fine India stone to tool use (chisels, plane blades, etc).
Ah nice! In which case - you have a suitably good stone for something important, and will last many years/generations
.And yep - they cut very quickly, and are all about pressure. With a bit of pressure you can make them work quite coarse, and with feather-light pressure they'll still cut, but at a very fine level.
Also - @thp001 has explained above why there always seemed to be a bit of a disparity to me in the supossed grit level of Indias. I hadn't realised I was comparing the quoted ANSI scale with what I'm more used to i.e. Japanese waterstones.
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Ah nice! In which case - you have a suitably good stone for something important, and will last many years
Also - @thp001 has explained above why there always seemed to be a bit of a disparity to me in the supossed grit level of Indias. I hadn't realised I was comparing the quoted ANSI scale with what I'm more used to i.e. Japanese waterstones.
Yeah ANSI and JIS are quite different and get farther from each other in number as you go up the scale. So like 400 ANSI and 700 JIS don't sound too far apart whereas 1200 ANSI is about 4000 JIS.
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- #35
I didn't have any intention on using it for razors, i got a black and another translucent on the way and the ones i have get me a great shave so aside from more coticules and ultimately finer and finer finishing stones though i can get pretty close to scalpel sharp(or maybe sharper don't know). This is all applicable as long as i don't begin wading into the world of jnats, but I'm more likely to try to chase primitive arks, ancient coticules, and thuris/escher stones. Id like to try la lune at some point. I definitely have a place for synthetics in the tool kit but i prefer to use them as little as possible for blades im going to put against my body. I enjoy anything made purely from natural materials, i hate mass produced cheap plastic chinese junk and i refuse to spend money on disposable garbage disguised as goods..
Good video here if you're interested:
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- #37
This video is good, i watched it a couple days ago. It would have been really helpful to be able to see examples of what the stones look like before, but it's full of info.
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- #38
I lapped part of it a few days ago after i got the initial oil off of it and it seemed to lap pretty quickly, which was weird to me because it felt like such a dense and pretty fine stone.It is one, yes. Always a nice find, congrats! Though have fun lapping it...
By all means use it for tools, just as long as you know you're giving them the very best. A Washita may not be as fine as a hard black or translucent, but it many ways it's a superior stone. The range of a good one can be astonishing, like no other stone anywhere. Very good fine natural stones are comparatively common; you won't find a jnat that can do 1k as well as a synthetic, but a Washita will, and the same stone might finish at 7k. The only things comparable I know are old Turkish, which are even quicker, but don't tend to have the low end that a Washita does. Right up there with greatest stones ever quarried, for my money.
(I concede that you probably have nicer tools, and look after them better than I do! But it's not something you should see as 'just' for tools.)
Ah that's good! Were you using SiC powder? I lap most of my other stones with an atoma, but novaculite just kills diamond plates. So have recently started using old SiC stones for heavy duty lapping, and they work really quite well.
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- #40
Yeah 220 SiC powder. I usually start with a little extra and just keep adding as it breaks down but i let it break all the way down first. Glass gets crowded and i'll clean it off.
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