Yes, even worse than my first Arks in the late 70's which were actually pretty good for the day.
A Noob, wanna' be, knife sharpening, coworker had enjoyed my edges and knew I used Arks. Wanting to learn more. He went out and got his own Arks. With out consulting with me.... Arks are Arks, in his mind, I suppose. He scored set of 3, 8" x 2" x .5", generic as you can get. Each glued to a piece of wood...$85. A light and dark grey, a white and a black. Yes, they are really Ark's, maybe from Arkansas, but...but...the horror...
Grey and white was a fairly serviceable stone, softest of the bunch. Slows down real fast. You will need to resurface frequently.
The white is very similar to a, but a bit harder than, a normal, soft ark except for the toxic, harder line going through it. It stands above the surface and "IF", it laps down flat you are going to feel it. I don't think I could force myself to use this stone for much. Maybe hoes and shovels...a true beater stone.
The black... Geez, the black. Gamma has mentioned crummy black arks but this is unreal. Not really I suppose It reflects the price, though I've never really come across anything like this before.
I tried to get the Noob interested in lapping the black so he could finish his knife with it. Amazing how fast he lost interest as soon as his arms got tired. Surprisingly the black did push back, more than expected. Even while using silica sand on a steel plate. Plus the fact, it would not clean up. The stone seems to be of 2, completely different porosity's, from one edge to the other. About one third of the stone cleans up enough to show a nice smooth surface, of questionable hardness, but shows possibilities of being a finisher of some sort.
The other two thirds, are very porous and will not lap smooth,.... at all.
I never dreamed material could be so different in so little distance. I believe that this stone was cut from, 3rd rate material, that contained two, very different porosity's. The raw material was of qestionable quality at best. I can't imagine how two different levels of porosity could form so close to each other. In my uneducated mind, I would think there would be a much larger, gradual transition from one level of porosity, to the next, if indeed they are the same type of material.
I would not even rate this black as a second. It's a 3rd rate stone at best maybe 4th. Flakes along the edges during lapping, were not conchoidial which I thought was suspicious. Maybe not even novaculite at all.
Despite the novelty of having a soft black area and a, smoother possibly, denser black area, to possibly finish something on.... Dude! Save your money!
So my Noob friend, was certain he got a bargain on 3 Arks. He has essentially spent $85 on a fairly sketchy soft ark, the only stone in the bunch worth two dead flies.
You can do better. Much better.....
I handled and worked with these a bit and they made me feel very, very fortunate, to have lot's of really nice Arks, of known quality and pedigree.
More Arks than I need, but not as many as I want.
A Noob, wanna' be, knife sharpening, coworker had enjoyed my edges and knew I used Arks. Wanting to learn more. He went out and got his own Arks. With out consulting with me.... Arks are Arks, in his mind, I suppose. He scored set of 3, 8" x 2" x .5", generic as you can get. Each glued to a piece of wood...$85. A light and dark grey, a white and a black. Yes, they are really Ark's, maybe from Arkansas, but...but...the horror...
Grey and white was a fairly serviceable stone, softest of the bunch. Slows down real fast. You will need to resurface frequently.
The white is very similar to a, but a bit harder than, a normal, soft ark except for the toxic, harder line going through it. It stands above the surface and "IF", it laps down flat you are going to feel it. I don't think I could force myself to use this stone for much. Maybe hoes and shovels...a true beater stone.
The black... Geez, the black. Gamma has mentioned crummy black arks but this is unreal. Not really I suppose It reflects the price, though I've never really come across anything like this before.
I tried to get the Noob interested in lapping the black so he could finish his knife with it. Amazing how fast he lost interest as soon as his arms got tired. Surprisingly the black did push back, more than expected. Even while using silica sand on a steel plate. Plus the fact, it would not clean up. The stone seems to be of 2, completely different porosity's, from one edge to the other. About one third of the stone cleans up enough to show a nice smooth surface, of questionable hardness, but shows possibilities of being a finisher of some sort.
The other two thirds, are very porous and will not lap smooth,.... at all.
I never dreamed material could be so different in so little distance. I believe that this stone was cut from, 3rd rate material, that contained two, very different porosity's. The raw material was of qestionable quality at best. I can't imagine how two different levels of porosity could form so close to each other. In my uneducated mind, I would think there would be a much larger, gradual transition from one level of porosity, to the next, if indeed they are the same type of material.
I would not even rate this black as a second. It's a 3rd rate stone at best maybe 4th. Flakes along the edges during lapping, were not conchoidial which I thought was suspicious. Maybe not even novaculite at all.
Despite the novelty of having a soft black area and a, smoother possibly, denser black area, to possibly finish something on.... Dude! Save your money!
So my Noob friend, was certain he got a bargain on 3 Arks. He has essentially spent $85 on a fairly sketchy soft ark, the only stone in the bunch worth two dead flies.
You can do better. Much better.....
I handled and worked with these a bit and they made me feel very, very fortunate, to have lot's of really nice Arks, of known quality and pedigree.
More Arks than I need, but not as many as I want.
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