It feels like a washita and has all the characteristics of the really old washitas I have, here is where my confusion comes from. Once I got it out of the box and flipped it over iwas shocked to see a label. This was the label......
I've got one I can make feel better than an 8k as far as the shave goes. I alternate between light spine leading strokes and lots of stropping to finish it. It was a pretty great shave tbh. I could get by only shaving of my big rusted color translucent one. I love these stones, it's about all I've been buying lately. I love arks in general but good washitas are something special.
I've got one I can make feel better than an 8k as far as the shave goes. I alternate between light spine leading strokes and lots of stropping to finish it. It was a pretty great shave tbh. I could get by only shaving of my big rusted color translucent one. I love these stones, it's about all I've been buying lately. I love arks in general but good washitas are something special.
I think Washita being exploited by pike actually predates hard and certainly soft ark being exploited by them.
That makes sense. Because I'd have been willing to bet a finger that that stone is a Washita. Either way I've got really fine and soft tie-dyed ark that I love as much as my Washitas, because it preforms. The kind that gets passed off a new washitas that are orange and purple. For $30 any pike stone is a win. I've payed more than that for a 1x3 pike wedge so whatever I'm tickled pink but in more than excited to learn more history of them. What used to be sold as soft arks as call hard Arks now right? That makes sense because that stone is hard. i think it might have almost pushed a Dimond plate over the edge last night so I get to play with the SiC soon.
So from that I take that your guess is probably right on, that they make it soft because at the time soft arks commanded higher prices. My next job is to figure out what's on the lid!
I'd guess a lww or no.1 from the looks of the stone, I can't make out the label either. It looks like it's probably fine/medium-hard. Either way that's a great looking stone! I bought this one last night and I look forward to working with it. Does that box look familiar to anyone? I recognize it but I don't know from where.
Is the "eater" pretty soft, fine and smooth? I've got one that feels like silk but it munches steel. With pressure and stropping I can get my pocket knife to treetop on it. I think it's a washita, it's got to be a lower grade though, it's pure white when it's clean(never, it goes where I go) but it's got some sand pockets in it, I've never seen a rock like it but for a cheap, junk rock it's great. It was broken off a larger stone..
View attachment 1334497Natty wooden box on the LW! That's lovely
They both full 8x2s...?
I was looking back through this thread and saw this again and it caught my attention because I almost bought a lww slip stone a couple days ago. As I read down I notice "the sportsman" I wish I had a bucket full of these in 4 or 5 inch. I'd never *need* to carry another stone at work. Im sure I still would, I carry a half dozen now in a bag and 2 on my person. Those are just the natural sharpeners. I hate dull blades.
Have you run a razor across it yet? May not be a kitchen knife stone, may be a razor stone. Razors are awsome with hard ark finishes and I bet if it wasn't getting fine enough to shave do a bunch of spine leading strokes really lightly and strop the life out of it. If wager you'd be shocked what you're left with. Technique is the deal breaker in that situation.Slurry stones Tim!
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It was more difficult than I thought taking these pictures, but they show what I imagine is a ‘normal’ level of translucency (at least this is similar to all the other Washitas I’ve looked at), compared to the Pike stone. With the exception of hard Arks it’s the most translucent stone I have.
View attachment 1321204View attachment 1321205
I must say though I’m not completely in love with it just yet. It’s almost like a hard ark finish, but with feel and speed more similar to a Washita (I know! And this comes mere days after realising that my sterling silver croquet hoops were too shiny). Thing is - I don’t necessarily want a hard ark finish on a knife most of the time - I like the bite of a Washita.
Maybe I’ll understand it more with use, and nice to have a different option I suppose. It’ll be a very good de-burring / microbevel stone I imagine.
I was going to say I did the same with mine and being small was awkward at first. Pulled it out to take a picture and apparently it hit my black ark when I set it down and hard ark wins every time. Gluing it with gorilla super glue right now. This is why my backups have backups. Guess I might try a little one from dans.
