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Grindstones and Arkansas

I have recently procured a set of Dans Arkansas stones after over 25 years of dreaming of owning a set of my own. As you can see I asked for signatures being a fanboy :pipe::sob:.


I'm finding myself increasing enamored with the history of sharpening and remembered my uncles having a large grindwheel "3' Diameter or larger" that was pedal powered to sharpen anything they needed sharpened, knives, machete, axes, etc . I also remember seeing the same tool in old movies that blacksmiths utilized.

Has anyone ever heard of sharpening a Razor on a wheel? I'm assuming it would thin out the blade near the tip... I was wondering if how I could mimick that to see how it works.

Has anyone got any input or experience doing this?

Kindest Regards,


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Yes straight razors were in fact sharpened on wheels long ago But I suspect that bench stones had to be and use as well. In fact there seems to be good historical evidence that the wheels were in fact made of Novaculite. That being said the wheels were significantly large in diameter and I’ve had some conversation with someone fairly knowledgeable about this and it’s unfortunately as far as we know no such wheel survives from that time period although it seems to be clearly explained in the grinder’s handbooks.

There’s been extensive discussion about duplicating this on bench stones and unfortunately it’s been met with an extreme degree of contentiousness. That being said even with the use of bench stones prepared in such a way to more or less duplicate this I don’t know that it’s a one to one alternative simply due to the fact that the wheel is always moving in one direction. It’s not clear as to whether or not that is necessarily impactful in the end result though.
 
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rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
For me, I associate grinding wheels with grinding and whetstones with honing. Knives, machetes, axes, etc., Require different edge finishes than SRs.

A grinding wheel by its very nature will give you a concave bevel, even if it is ever so slight. This will decrease the bevel angle at the edge which may be good or bad depending on the steel and shaver's preference. When honing a concave bevel on a flat whetstone, only the edge, top of bevel and spine are in contact with the honing surface.

Some prefer a concave bevel, some do not and others are indifferent.
 
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I think I remember @David saying that one of his regrets a long time ago was passing up the opportunity to buy a large old Arkansas grinding wheel...(?)

Though wheels from other stones are still used quite extensively for grinding and sharpening knives and kamisori in Japan:



The effect of thinning or concaving the edge you could probably approximate by using a convexed benchstone, which some people rate highly.

And of course not all wheels need to be mounted vertically anyway. Mine own olde coticule wheele, for instance:

 

Legion

Staff member
I think I remember @David saying that one of his regrets a long time ago was passing up the opportunity to buy a large old Arkansas grinding wheel...(?)

Though wheels from other stones are still used quite extensively for grinding and sharpening knives and kamisori in Japan:



The effect of thinning or concaving the edge you could probably approximate by using a convexed benchstone, which some people rate highly.

And of course not all wheels need to be mounted vertically anyway. Mine own olde coticule wheele, for instance:

You can still buy new horizontal rotating whetstones.
 
I believe it was common practice during the age of wedge grinds to have them thinned or re-concaved on a wheel every so often for ease of sharpening. The final honing was done on regular stones, however. I've done it myself before on damaged razors with an old Craftsman low RPM wet grinder, takes a steady hand.
 
Wheels are still used by pros. An associate, friend actually, uses one for his commercial sharpening work. I think a new wheel is 36" in diameter. It is run through a water bath - so it's a 'wet wheel'. It is not novaculite though. He ooes cutlery, mostly. Very good work, killer edges.
Urasuki are ground on a wheel, free hand, which is pretty intense to see.
Not that long ago there were a bunch of what I remember being 8-10" Ark wheels on fleabay... I think the hole size was weird and I didn't want to deal with it. One looked to be a translucent.
For my personal use, I'd rather use stones though. Besides not wanting the clutter and extra machinery, I wouldn't enjoy the wheel as much as a stone.
 
I think I remember @David saying that one of his regrets a long time ago was passing up the opportunity to buy a large old Arkansas grinding wheel...(?)

Though wheels from other stones are still used quite extensively for grinding and sharpening knives and kamisori in Japan:



The effect of thinning or concaving the edge you could probably approximate by using a convexed benchstone, which some people rate highly.

And of course not all wheels need to be mounted vertically anyway. Mine own olde coticule wheele, for instance:



Tell me you've sharpened a razor on that and tried the shave.
 
Tell me you've sharpened a razor on that and tried the shave.


I haven't actually I'm afraid. I've just been using the stone itself on a bench, and it's actually rather good.

Though you're right... one does not simply get a coticule wheele and not wheele it. So let's go in! I will update everybody later with details of my inevitable failure.

Also a grabbed and zero-bevelled a little Tosa paring knife, which I might try on the BBW side beforehand, to get my eye in and muscle memory down.

IMG-5036 (1).jpg


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I have recently procured a set of Dans Arkansas stones after over 25 years of dreaming of owning a set of my own. As you can see I asked for signatures being a fanboy :pipe::sob:.


I'm finding myself increasing enamored with the history of sharpening and remembered my uncles having a large grindwheel "3' Diameter or larger" that was pedal powered to sharpen anything they needed sharpened, knives, machete, axes, etc . I also remember seeing the same tool in old movies that blacksmiths utilized.

Has anyone ever heard of sharpening a Razor on a wheel? I'm assuming it would thin out the blade near the tip... I was wondering if how I could mimick that to see how it works.

Has anyone got any input or experience doing this?

Kindest Regards,


View attachment 1603856


Also OP - lovely set of stones. :)

I rather like the idea of getting them signed too. Top quality hard arks probably aren't going to be quarried forever, so why not get the box signed by someone who's likely to be one of the last people doing it! I've often asked winemakers to sign particular bottles for me.
 
I haven't actually I'm afraid. I've just been using the stone itself on a bench, and it's actually rather good.

Though you're right... one does not simply get a coticule wheele and not wheele it. So let's go in! I will update everybody later with details of my inevitable failure.

Also a grabbed and zero-bevelled a little Tosa paring knife, which I might try on the BBW side beforehand, to get my eye in and muscle memory down.

View attachment 1604378

View attachment 1604379



Mother of Pearl!!!

Do you think this was a one-time invention, or was it mass produced?
 
Ok then team (@rideon66 @SliceOfLife @David @Legion), this wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the wheele has now experienced the life it was born to live!

The other obvious thing to point out, in addition to what I mentioned above, is that if for instance I were to try honing the razor in this position:

IMG-5084.jpg



Then the heel would get many orders of magnitude more abrasion than the tip, because of how circles work. So again - the razor needs to be kinda moved around parts of the surface whilst it's spinning in order to try to hone evenly along the length of the edge.

Eventually I managed to find a technique that worked ok, though I wouldn't describe it as the most seamless of operations. Here's an example of what I was doing:




One thing I would say is that it was quite easy to tell when the bevel was set properly, from how you were cutting water. If you got really good at using it, then I think its best application might be if you had a load of razors that you wanted to take from bevel set to prefinish relatively quickly. And it'd be much easier generally if you had a minion or assistant to crank it, so you could use both hands on the blade.

I wasn't holding out much hope for my efforts tbh. But in a truly staggering turn up for the books, an outcome that surprised literally everybody, after some stropping... my razor will cut a hanging hair. Not silently by any means, but something like HHT 3 to 4.


IMG-5087.jpg



So I'll give it a go later for fun. I'm expecting the edge to be quite aggressive. It's a fast coticule even before the fact it's spinning, and delicate pressure management with one hand was pretty difficult / impossible. I doubt it was ever intended for the final stages of finishing.
 
Ok then team (@rideon66 @SliceOfLife @David @Legion), this wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the wheele has now experienced the life it was born to live!

The other obvious thing to point out, in addition to what I mentioned above, is that if for instance I were to try honing the razor in this position:

View attachment 1605308


Then the heel would get many orders of magnitude more abrasion than the tip, because of how circles work. So again - the razor needs to be kinda moved around parts of the surface whilst it's spinning in order to try to hone evenly along the length of the edge.

Eventually I managed to find a technique that worked ok, though I wouldn't describe it as the most seamless of operations. Here's an example of what I was doing:




One thing I would say is that it was quite easy to tell when the bevel was set properly, from how you were cutting water. If you got really good at using it, then I think its best application might be if you had a load of razors that you wanted to take from bevel set to prefinish relatively quickly. And it'd be much easier generally if you had a minion or assistant to crank it, so you could use both hands on the blade.

I wasn't holding out much hope for my efforts tbh. But in a truly staggering turn up for the books, an outcome that surprised literally everybody, after some stropping... my razor will cut a hanging hair. Not silently by any means, but something like HHT 3 to 4.


View attachment 1605309


So I'll give it a go later for fun. I'm expecting the edge to be quite aggressive. It's a fast coticule even before the fact it's spinning, and delicate pressure management with one hand was pretty difficult / impossible. I doubt it was ever intended for the final stages of finishing.
Yes even in videos I have seen of Dovo where they use electric wheels to sharpen it is just the bevel to prefinish on the wheel. Then hand honing on stones and stropping on leather.
 
That's good information, however I was thinking more about the virtical wheels instead of horizontal. Considering the radius of the wheel, you have a thinner curved edge?....

In my mind, I'm envisioning a thinner curved edge would almost act like a hydrofoil "I may not be using the correct terminology" to the face. Has anyone experienced this or can confirm?
 
A Concave bevel? Yeah, I think some people have done that. I wouldn't want to try it on anything that wasn't a wedge though. Generally a hollow ground razor doesn't have a lot of leeway for weakening the edge before it risks failing... and concaving the bevel would almost certainly cause problems on a lot of razors.
 
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