Washita Thread. Show off, discuss, etc.

[cotedupy]

Various flavours of Washitas; 1st and 2nd are Pike No.1s, 3rd and 4th unlabelled.

SG readings came in at 2.08, 2.16, 2.31, 2.34. Though they haven't been fully degreased yet, so will go down. I usually reckon on an oil soaked stone losing about 0.03 - 0.05 after degreasing. The first and third stones are quite clean, so they probably won't change much.

 

[ables]

Nice. I want one.

I have a 9' W-stone that looks almost like that ones father.

It's a good little stone, just for kicks I touched up a 8" chef knife on it to see how difficult it would be. I used it in palm moving the knive and as a finger stone moving the stone, not too bad. I don't think I'd want to sharpen a rolled edge axe/hatchet however with it.

They came in a leather pouch orginally. This one surprisingly was in a yellow vinyl pouch. The vinyl pouches normally hold a 2 sided india only stone that is a look alike.

 

[Empire straights]

My newest and cutest stone to date, the Norton Sportsman Stone Washita/India combo WIP13. Thanks to @cotedupy for noticing it. A massive 1" x 3"! The washita is the translucent stone with small air bubbles variety which is my favorite. If I ever get to go backpacking again it'll be the perfect stone to bring along based on the lightweight.

View attachment 1498429View attachment 1498430

I'm going to make one of these some day. There are few tools I can think of that couldn't finish acceptably on it.

 

[cotedupy]

Sharpening some of the family's knives yesterday on some new Washitas. The surprise hit was the one on the right, which I thought was going to be fine and slower, but actually turned out to be seriously quick, so I took a little vid to show why.

The stone has a very high concentration of densely packed, small surface pores, which makes it look almost twinkly in the light. All of the best Washitas I've had look like this when you sharpen on them.

 

[cotedupy]

FWIW - I haven't really found that kind of thing to correlate with how hard the stone is, you can get it on harder or softer stones. The former are likely to finish a little finer, the latter to be a little faster. That stone happens to be relatively hard, with an SG around 2.3.

 

[Legion]

Sharpening some of the family's knives yesterday on some new Washitas. The surprise hit was the one on the right, which I thought was going to be fine and slower, but actually turned out to be seriously quick, so I took a little vid to show why.

The stone has a very high concentration of densely packed, small surface pores, which makes it look almost twinkly in the light. All of the best Washitas I've had look like this when you sharpen on them.

View attachment 1499596

Tell your family to stop supporting the French cutlery industry. Like it or not, now it is Sheffield or nothing.

Oh, and hone it on something Welsh.

 

[cotedupy]

Tell your family to stop supporting the French cutlery industry. Like it or not, now it is Sheffield or nothing.

Oh, and hone it on something Welsh.

TBH I wasn't desperately impressed with those K-Sabs, at least the three modern ones, depite the fact that along with T-I they're meant to be the best Sabatier makers. Even ignoring the fingerguards, which are the devil's work, they also have nasty, soft-but-wear-resistant steel. Which makes them rather difficult to deburr properly, and not particularly sharp when you do. I would take Wusthof over these.

Older Sabs are better (you've got quite a nice one I think I remember?), but really the Hitachi 'paper steels' are in a class of their own for kitchen knives, imo.

 

[Legion]

There have been a few popping up lately. This one just came out of the dip.

 

[Legion]

This is a bit interesting. So the stone above was just a little bit dished, maybe one or two mm in the middle, so I gave it a lap. Lapped through all the degreased stone and made it dirty again.

So two days in simple green only removes the oil from the top 1-2mm of a Washita.

Back in the dip it goes.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So I bought a "Red Label". I'll let yall know what it is like when it gets here.

Digging has found the Marples catalogs (1920's and 1930's UK) which call "Red Label" Washita's #2 as well as (1890's US) Strelinger catalogs which talk about the premium labels, including "Red Label" Washita's as top grade alongside LW and RR.

Further, I've dug and found that in 1891 the going rate for a 8x2x1" LWW or RRW was $0.6/lb or about $0.75-$0.80, and the going rate for #2's in the same size was about $0.25.
In 1895 Strelinger was selling "Red Label" Washita's in 8x2x1" for $0.80... So at least in the late 1800's, "Red Label" were selling for the same price as LWW, not #2's.

This makes me hopeful that Marples "Red Label" #2's are something else entirely and perhaps the shipping boxes had a red label or something of the sort (which would make some degree of sense, as no other labeled #2's exist, and the numbers of "Red Label" Washita's I've seen strongly suggests they were not the cheapest option which we would expect to see hundreds of examples of...(I've seen four with existing labels, roughly one for every 4-5 rosy reds I've seen or one for every 50-100 lily whites I've seen))

But since we don't have pictures of a "Red Label" in any of these catalogs, it's all just guesswork.

Once the stone is here though, I'll update. I doubt I'd confuse a #2 Washita for a LW/RR grade one.

 

[David]

Figured you’d buy that one. I’ve never seen another one like it. Nice score.

 

[SliceOfLife]

One of the pickers on eBay (the guy who always shoots stones holding them in his hands in his backyard) has sold two in the past... but the listings were old enough I couldn't see if he got RR or even LW prices for them (without a membership to that Worthpoint site).

Both looked very soft with some red in them... but when they're dirty that doesn't mean much.

Either going to be very sorry I wasted so much money on a #2 or very pleased I got a lightning fast stone at a fraction of the RR going price when it gets here.

 

[cotedupy]

So I bought a "Red Label". I'll let yall know what it is like when it gets here.

Digging has found the Marples catalogs (1920's and 1930's UK) which call "Red Label" Washita's #2 as well as (1890's US) Strelinger catalogs which talk about the premium labels, including "Red Label" Washita's as top grade alongside LW and RR.

Further, I've dug and found that in 1891 the going rate for a 8x2x1" LWW or RRW was $0.6/lb or about $0.75-$0.80, and the going rate for #2's in the same size was about $0.25.
In 1895 Strelinger was selling "Red Label" Washita's in 8x2x1" for $0.80... So at least in the late 1800's, "Red Label" were selling for the same price as LWW, not #2's.

This makes me hopeful that Marples "Red Label" #2's are something else entirely and perhaps the shipping boxes had a red label or something of the sort (which would make some degree of sense, as no other labeled #2's exist, and the numbers of "Red Label" Washita's I've seen strongly suggests they were not the cheapest option which we would expect to see hundreds of examples of...(I've seen four with existing labels, roughly one for every 4-5 rosy reds I've seen or one for every 50-100 lily whites I've seen))

But since we don't have pictures of a "Red Label" in any of these catalogs, it's all just guesswork.

Once the stone is here though, I'll update. I doubt I'd confuse a #2 Washita for a LW/RR grade one.

FWIW... There were at least two types of Washita that had red labels back in the day (as well as RRs), both of which seem to come up in the UK most often afaics.

One had a red label but the stone was called simply ‘Washita’ the other had a red label but was labelled ‘Red Washita’. Don’t ask me the difference!

I’ve had one stone that had the ghost of some kind of red label on it. It was quite hard, coarse, but not particularly fast, and not very homogenous. That one was definitely more like a No.2 quality than a LW I think.

 

[Legion]

Another couple cleaned up.

The smaller one is an odd size. 2x5.5". Anybody else had one this size, rather than the usual 6"?

 

[Wid]

Another couple cleaned up.

The smaller one is an odd size. 2x5.5". Anybody else had one this size, rather than the usual 6"?

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Those cleaned up nice

 

[Legion]

Those cleaned up nice

Thanks. I haven’t lapped them yet, but they are pretty flat. I have another coming in the mail, so when it arrives I’ll do the three at the same time, then maybe give them all another week in the dip.

 

[Legion]

Interestingly, getting some rage of SG measures off these things. You think you can pick it by weighing it in your hand, and dragging a thumbnail across it. Nah, you can’t guess it.

 

[cotedupy]

Interestingly, getting some rage of SG measures off these things. You think you can pick it by weighing it in your hand, and dragging a thumbnail across it. Nah, you can’t guess it.

I’m usually alright at it for Washitas. I reckon I could do them to +/- .05. I’ll have to give a proper go next time I get one.

(Looks like it’s been raining since I left. Nice rocks!)

 

[Bowmaker]

Another couple cleaned up.

The smaller one is an odd size. 2x5.5". Anybody else had one this size, rather than the usual 6"?

View attachment 1504496View attachment 1504497

I have a few undersize 6's. This is my favorite one because it fits so well in hand. It's only 1 3/4" wide by 5 5/8'. Outline of a label still visable on the stone.



I soaked this stone for months to get it back to white. A couple of uses with oil and and washing it off after use has made no difference, it's already oil soaked. It's a sponge.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Another couple cleaned up.

The smaller one is an odd size. 2x5.5". Anybody else had one this size, rather than the usual 6"?

2*5.5 probably means it was a smallish boxed 2*6"... I've had some 6" wwd that were only ~5.5"