Taking out a chip and setting the bevel on a W&B Frameback with a vintage Washita. Etsy Shop - www.etsy.com/shop/tomonagura Website - www.tomonagura.com FB - / tomonagura IG - / keithvjohnson
Just acquired 2 washitas of similar density that I would say is just under that of a true hard from dans they have visible pores under the microscope but was surprised how fine a polish they leave. Mine have quite a bit of translucency on one side of the stone which is smoother or denser while the opposite sides are less translucent and faster in my experience. Really cool and different from my other arks, crazy what SiO2 does when formed under different levels of heat and pressure.
Cool, nice Washita like that are good to have. In theory, the density difference between a Washita and a Translucent Ark is about .25...not a lot, they really are 'just under' the most dense types. Thing is, when I put a thin section of confirmed Washita (talking 1950s Norton type, not the newer stuff) alongside a thin section of Translucent Ark on a scope I see the tremendous differences that are not told by SG calculations. This can be done with good clean samples and a 4x loupe too, actually. A lot of the very white Washita from the old days showed a lot of translucency. Things changed over time. After the 50s, a lot of what was sold/labeled as Washita were more like Soft Ark to me.
Rewatch this washita videos, finally I manage to bought one 8x2" honey brown stone eith a darker vein and lot of translucent on the end's snd edges. Look very nice like amber. Cutting relatively fast but i'm not really experienced with ark s, have one little hard black arkansas, from a month , so not a while.....
@@KeithVJohnson1 today i bought also a Smith's black Arkansas 6x2 in a cherry wooden case. It have some portions with bright minuscule sparkle like your bigger black stone. I'm wondering i'm lucky or what 😉👍😄
Question about severe chip removal and taping the spine: If you have a ton of work to do on a blade, ie, large chips to remove, but you ultimately want to be able to sharpen the razor on a stone without taping the spine, would you ever opt to first tape the spine and do the coarsest work and large metal removal first, and then come back and remove the tape and reset the bevel after the major damage has been ground out (in order to reduce the wear on the spine... which is not something I'm overly concerned with, but seems like it may be prudent in some cases where there's a ton of work to be done?). Or would I just be wasting my time in this case? Like many things I'm sure there's no "right answer," but I'm curious of your thoughts given your experience.
Depends. If you reduce blade width to remove a chip, and you do not also reduce spine thickness, you will increase the bevel's angle. So, if taping the spine while removing the chip means the resulting bevel's angle will be 22 degrees; no, I would not want that. It all boils down to what the geometry of the beginning and then the final result will be, along with the users preference. People who are unaware of the difference between how the one blade shaves at both 17 & 22 deg might not think twice about it. I have worked with many blades that started with 20 deg+ bevels and after reducing the spine to 15 -17 deg angles, every one of them shaved much better. But when it is only 1 degree difference, between - say 16 & 17 deg, you prob won't notice. Me, personally, I live by the 'Form Ever Follows Function" mindset. Edge geometry always comes first, spine wear is part of the game.
decided to rewatch this one, i just got myself a washita off ebay, seller said its a smiths but there's no name on the box it just says 'genuine novaculite washita stone'. but anyway it looks pretty nice, white with orange spots and it has a liiittle translucency. im not going to run my razor on it anytime soon though its shaving great, but ill try it out on my pocket knife for now. wish i could've got one of the washitas you were selling but i was pretty broke at the time
Hello Keith. Excellent content! I'm relatively new to honing. Less than 50 blades under my belt. I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around a couple topics... when processing x-strokes why do we not see extra wear at the tip compared to the heel considering that the heel spends less time on the stone? Similarly, why do I read that honing perpendicular to the stone will create a frown?
Keith, I have a general question about technique. When I hone, I often leave the spine of the blade on the stone, and flip it to do the return stroke, the way you would when stroping, but with an edge leading stroke. Is that something to be avoided because it could damage the edge, or is it just a matter of preference?
Ahh she's a beautiful stone got 3myself you hit the nail on the head after all the sweat and swearing is over preparing an ark it's Zen time honing great vid Keith
Norton owns the rights to the legitimate mine that has the existing Washita vein . I don't know if this part is true, Based on what i have read they still have plenty of that stone/vein left, but the market isn't worth their time so they choose not to mine it anymore. Even though certain rock hounds would pay through the roof, there must not be enough demand for them to consider it!?!!
Washita came from many locations. Norton does still own at least one of them. They quarried one old vein back about 15 years ago and did a short run of Washita sales 'just for the heck of it' - was instigated by some wood working group. What St Gobain's position on mining new stone is today, is anyone's guess. People have speculated that it's not cost effective, might be true or might not be true. Might be that they don't care, or any number of other reasons.
Great video Keith. I read a comment recently on arks, explaining that they don’t have conventional grit, as in abrasive on a surface, but rather act more like a cheese grater, bit of a light bulb moment for me. Would it be a fare comparison?
I don't know that I'd say 'cheese grater' is a 'perfect' analogy because someone could argue that sandpaper works the same way. And Arks are not similar to sandpaper. But the line of thought is sound in that the person making the analogy is 'getting out of the box' and not thinking in terms of Naniwa Super Stones.
Yeah not the perfect analogy, just a different way of thinking. helps explain the porosity and differences in gravity between the grades. I didn’t get how a less dense stone would be courser before.
Think about a bed of nails. The magician lies down on a bed of nails that has a bizillion nails in it, all the same size/height/etc, all of which are very close together. he lies on the nails and remains unscathed. But if that bed of nails had, say - 50% fewer nails, the chances of puncture are increased. In a way, it's almost like surface tension.
Thank you, Keith, for another informative Ark video! I am beginning to understand them a little bit more, but I need more time on the stone. Which brings me to a question to you about cleaning them and swarf build up in the stone. I have cleaned my Soft Ark and Washita after every honing in the sink with soap and Dove and a hard nylon brush. The oil pretty much cleans up, but the Washita was left with swarf in the stone after the first honing (pretty much the same with the Soft Ark too), and I can’t get it out! It looks like the underside of the stone in the video and, from what I can tell, the side that you honed on. So my questions are: should this swarf come our after washing at the sink?; would it come out after being soaked in Simple Green and how concentrated a solution do you use?; is it necessary to lap it again with SIC to get it white again?; and what do we do if we think it is affecting the cutting power of the stone? As I’m writing this I have the two stones soaking in a 1:1 Simple Green/Water solution in my bathroom with some serán wrap over it to cut down on fumes. Which brings me to another question. Being that you live in Brooklyn, where do you let your stones soak if you don’t have a garage? Any problem with Simple Green fumes in the house? Thanks!
Applying fresh oil after cleaning can help particles loosen up and float out. The stone will never become spotless this way but the cutting action will be ok. There will always be swarf - always. The stones will always turn colors no matter what - it's ok, they can discolor and work fine. . I soak stones in a plastic tub with a lid that sits under the sink, the smell is non-toxic but pungent and the lid keeps all of the smell in. Its one of those storage things that has four locking flaps, one on each side. I'm glad you mentioned this because I think there's a stone in there now for like 3 weeks that I forgot about.
I am starting to see how many different Washita there are. I ponder if one can have a progression of just Washita stones if they wanted to get really CRAZY :) Washita-/marbled---no1. ---lilly soft--lilly hard. where would rosy red go?
I’m surprised they were less expensive than a No.1 though. You see on a lot of stones like woodworkers delight where it says grade RR and LW. I always assumed the RR’s were right there with the LW’s
@@dcaddo2 Many companies 'borrowed' naming conventions. Rosy Red stones were actually only Pike/Norton, they owned that mine. Other brands using those names were riding on their coattails. Lots of funny business going on back then, the laws were different.
@@dcaddo2 There were less of them, and being softer they wore faster so fewer examples exist.
10 дней назад
didnt know you were into knives. check out bark river knives. the best. A2 steel sucks. 3v and crewwear are fantastic obviously so is magna cut. best bushcraft EDC knives.
