What's new

Burnishing an Arkansas Stone?

duke762

Rose to the occasion
I've recently stared using 600 grit finished stones and love them. You can always change it higher if it doesn't work for you. It seems like mine have been all over the place at on time or another, finish wise, but I'm running at 600 now and it's working great for me Lubricant, personal preference, experience, even the stone itself may determine what works best for you. Don't be afraid to experiment.
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
This is how I did it with my Arkansas Hard Black.


I'm pleased with the results, but I'm not remotely an expert on anything honing related. My stone is a Hard Black from Sharpening Supplies; it was mined and prepared by Dan's.

There are several threads related to lapping the Ark and other Ark stone topics.

Happy shaves,

Jim
 
Are we talking about traditional novaculite Arkansas stones, or the Coe stones that are from Arkansas, but from another area and not novaculite? For traditional novaculite Arkansas stones, it depends on what the goal is, 1000x to 2000x for a polished surface for finishing razors with oil or just letting the blades do the smoothing over time. For the softer Coe stones which go out of true in five sessions and are a different animal, maybe 320x. For a more aggressive surface with traditional Arkansas stones used with oil, maybe 80x to 120x.
 
Swarf? Triying to shave, couldn't care less about swarf. The coticule does the ground work with plenty of blackening. The arkansas has to remove so little steel, that I wouldn't expect to show any swarf.

What I do see is surface changes. This is specially visible in a yanagiba big bevels (in that case there is some swarf). Feed back is very telling, guiding me along those changes.

Did some testing with DW40. Stone was faster, but edges where not better. Since I like to keep things simple, and dont care much for DW40 smell, I stuck with water.
 
Swarf means that the stone is cutting. No swarf means that it isn't. An Ark will finish a razor either way. Just by different mechanisms.
 
Swarf means that the stone is cutting. No swarf means that it isn't. An Ark will finish a razor either way. Just by different mechanisms.

I’ve seen where some will use stone dry, no lubrication, water, other.....Can you explain no swarf mechanism, please?
 
Using the stone dry will usually produce swarf also, but depending on the surface of the stone, may load it. I think the mechanism when no swarf is produced is a form of smearing action or a sort of plastic deformation. I have noticed the same thing happen with even a very fine India hone that has been smoothed/glazed. Used with oil, this India stone will produce the sort of finish you'd expect from it's grit level and plenty of black swarf. Cleaned thoroughly and used with water, it will nearly mirror polish the same blade but no or very little swarf is produced.
 
Here is how I‘ve burnished my translucent arky:
  1. Lapped the manufacturer surface by diamond plate (400 grit quite worn down)
  2. Put an DIN A4 printer paper on a piece of tempered glas, apply some of 600 grit diamond paste (got a set of tubes on ebay for couple of bucks) to the paper and rub the arky for a while on it
  3. Carefully clean the stone, replace the paper and progress with diamond paste up to a higher level. I‘ve stopped at 5000. Stone got super refined but hazy looking surface
  4. Took a Thuri slurry stone, created a creamy slurry on the arky and worked a testing razor on it for a while. This has highly polished the surface, it looks loke a glas now
Have fun!
 

Attachments

  • 994D0BB0-B4C3-47CE-BB8B-AB31DE399C41.jpeg
    994D0BB0-B4C3-47CE-BB8B-AB31DE399C41.jpeg
    774.3 KB · Views: 42

Rosseforp

I think this fits, Gents
Well guys, I just got 2 stones, one is a hard surgical black ark, and the other is a cot. Both are 6 x 2 inches. After lapping both sides of the ark with 320 w/d I progressed to 600 w/d on only one side.
Then I thought, why not try using the cot to polish the ark?
I put the 320 w/d side to the cot and it built a slurry right away, after about 10 minutes it looks better than the 600 w/d side...........

Has anybody else tried this?
prof
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
Well guys, I just got 2 stones, one is a hard surgical black ark, and the other is a cot. Both are 6 x 2 inches. After lapping both sides of the ark with 320 w/d I progressed to 600 w/d on only one side.
Then I thought, why not try using the cot to polish the ark?
I put the 320 w/d side to the cot and it built a slurry right away, after about 10 minutes it looks better than the 600 w/d side...........

Has anybody else tried this?
prof

Just guessing but I think my true hard Arks are harder than my two coticules. I'll be interested in opinions much more informed than my guess.
 
Cotis and arks were made for each other it seems.

I use my ark to make sure my coti is flat sometimes. Also ark after a coti as you’re honing produces a magical edge.
 

Rosseforp

I think this fits, Gents
Just guessing but I think my true hard Arks are harder than my two coticules. I'll be interested in opinions much more informed than my guess.
I might want to pick your brain about the coticule's too, I have used ark's for eons, just tiny ones for touching up diagonal cutters and scissors when the alignment needs to be spot on. I have never lapped an arkie before. So this is all new to me.


But I had never even heard of a coticule stone until this year. something about the garnets being impregnated naturally intrigues me about them.....3 swipes of the arkie on my coticule and the pencil marks were all gone!

I have watched the guys from STANDRIDGE GRANITE CORPORATION lap the surface plates at work enough times to get an idea on the procedure for that. I have seen them lap granite rocks that measured 6 feet by 4 feet, 1 foot thick...... to a flatness of .000050" over the entire surface.......
prof
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
BTW, I loved the video Jim.
Doug

Which one, Doug.

One of my favorites is this one.


I love the shave at the end, the razor grinding, and the scale/pinning stuff (which is quick but very educational). I can imagine Billy laughing at me with all my fancy soaps, and prep stuff, and skin stretching; what's his shaving soap?

Glad you liked it, in any case.

Happy shaves,

Jim
 

Rosseforp

I think this fits, Gents
Jim, the video at the beginning of this thread of you lapping an arkie.
<iframe width="500" height="300" src="
" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'll have to watch the Making a Razor video now!
Doug
 
I lent my NanoHone to Jarrod at the Superior Shave and he did a video using it. Flattened the Ark in 1/5 of the time then a DMX and left it smooth enough that he didn't need to burnish it. He plans on honing a razor on the stone to see the results. I used the NanoHone on my Dan's surgical black stone and the flatness and smoothnes was considerably better then what I got when the stone arrive. I found the stone produced a very sharp and smooth edge on a number of different razors. Much better shave. Took me about 10 minutes on the NanoHone.
 
I lent my NanoHone to Jarrod at the Superior Shave and he did a video using it. Flattened the Ark in 1/5 of the time then a DMX and left it smooth enough that he didn't need to burnish it. He plans on honing a razor on the stone to see the results. I used the NanoHone on my Dan's surgical black stone and the flatness and smoothnes was considerably better then what I got when the stone arrive. I found the stone produced a very sharp and smooth edge on a number of different razors. Much better shave. Took me about 10 minutes on the NanoHone.
Which nano hone did you have?
 
The NanoHone plate also works great on coticules, whetstones, & Jnats. On anything other then the hard Arks, very light pressure does the trick in no time.
 
Top Bottom