Arkansas Stone??

danbot

danbot

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Oct 31, 2009
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A few years ago a buddy of mine gave me a seemingly very old sharpening stone that he found in a lot that he bought at an estate auction. I never got around to really checking it out until a few days ago. It just looked very dirty and black and I just assumed it was an old chunk of Carborundum.

Well, I got it all cleaned up and now I'm thinking it might be a old Arkansas stone.

Here's the box it was in.

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Here's a closer pic of the stone.

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And on both ends of the box lid is stamped "G.LENG"

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Anybody Know if this is what I think it is, or have any interesting info about it? All I can find is that "LENG" is a Chinese surname.

Thanks for looking!
 
There used to be a lot more natural stones on the market than just Arkansas stones. Pike had a good dozen or so completely different stone types back in the day, and there were many other companies as well, including ones in Canada and Europe that exported to the USA. It might be an Arkansas, but it might be something else, too.
 
Many older Arkansas stones were fitted into boxes to protect them. The name is likely the guy who built the box and used that stone.

It looks to me like a soft Arkansas stone - capable of being put back to use, nice find!

I picked up one very similar at an estate sale years ago and dropped it on the floor of my basement - it broke into many pieces...

Edit to add: yes it could certainly be some other natural stone. It should work well on carbon steels.
 
Thanks for the replies!
I'll give it a go on my hc steel kitchen knife.
Maybe tonight.
 
That stone is a near exact match to my Washita stone. ( a mottled khaki color) Which is the most coarse stone of the Arkansas stone grades. As you push your knife across it you should feel it cutting some. Not a glassy smooth surface.
Around 500 grit. They still cut slow and are acceptable for kitchen cutlery and pocket knives w/ 420 to 425M steel. You can enhance this by procuring some SiC grit of about 400 and rubbing it on to the surface of One side of your stone. This will help it cut better. Then use it and let us know. DM
 
I think it's hard to judge the color in its current state. Looks pretty discolored from rust. Cleaning it up with SiC grit like David suggests is probably a good idea. The stone has clearly seen a lot of use and could probably use conditioning at a bare minimum.
 
David Martin said:
That stone is a near exact match to my Washita stone. ( a mottled khaki color) Which is the most coarse stone of the Arkansas stone grades. As you push your knife across it you should feel it cutting some. Not a glassy smooth surface.
Around 500 grit. They still cut slow and are acceptable for kitchen cutlery and pocket knives w/ 420 to 425M steel. You can enhance this by procuring some SiC grit of about 400 and rubbing it on to the surface of One side of your stone. This will help it cut better. Then use it and let us know. DM
Click to expand...
Okay, I'll go get some 400x and clean it up!
I'll post up pics of the clean stone and try sharpening my kitchen knife with it.
 
Arkansas sharpening stones are made of a rock/mineral known as "novaculite". It is a mineral that's really very abundant on the earth but for some strange reason in the state of Arkansas here in the USA it is one of the few places where you can mine it close to the earth's surface. A lot of novaculite is very deep in the ground and very hard to mine or extract.

There is a similar mineral over in Europe called "coticules" which is also known as "Belgium Razor Stone" which has similar properties and it very much liked by Barbers and others who use it to sharpen straight razors.

There are some problems with novaculite stones in that they load up quickly and are not as easy to clean and maintain like Spyderco's ceramic stones for instance. Some woodworkers I've known over the years have told me that the really top grade of novaculite has been mined out for a long time now and hard to find>> but is still sought after by woodworkers who like it's properties. But I've seen new Arkansas Stones show up in catalogs like Garrett Wade that are considered high grade.

Actually I would love to learn more about the natural stones. It would be nice to learn more about which rocks in nature could be used to sharpen blades. But some of these newer steels are getting so hard and tough that diamond seems to be the only alternative.
 
I wouldn't call coticules at all similar to novaculite. Coticules derive their abrasive action from garnet, while novaculite is comprised chiefly of quartz. Their look, feel, composition, and cutting action are radically different from one another.
 
42, agreed.^ Plus, the garnets are harder and help with cutting. Yes, it is a novelty type stone and expresses a stone of an era when most knives were made of simple carbon steel. Someone thought enough of it to make a nice wooden box for it. Use it and see what you think. DM
 
Novaculite stones, i.e., 'Arkansas' stones, are easy to keep from loading up. Used just like any other oil stone, with mineral oil, they'll keep working without loading. If one is using water on them, they could load up pretty fast if the water evaporates quickly. But used with oil, they keep working well. Cleaning them is just a matter of applying some clean oil, rubbing the surface of the stone with it (use a fingertip), then wiping the oil with the lifted swarf away with a rag/towel (microfiber towels are perfect for this).


David
 
David Martin said:
42, agreed.^ Plus, the garnets are harder and help with cutting. Yes, it is a novelty type stone and expresses a stone of an era when most knives were made of simple carbon steel. Someone thought enough of it to make a nice wooden box for it. Use it and see what you think. DM
Click to expand...

And for reference, quartz (silicon dioxide) has a Knoop hardness of 850, garnet is 1360, white aluminum oxide is 1950, silicon carbide is 2480, boron carbide is 2760, cubic boron nitride is 7800, and diamond is 8000.
 
By the way, boron carbide was included in the list not because of it being common in sharpening stones (it isn't) but because it's just harder than vanadium carbide, which is 2660.
 
David Martin said:
That stone is a near exact match to my Washita stone. ( a mottled khaki color) Which is the most coarse stone of the Arkansas stone grades. As you push your knife across it you should feel it cutting some. Not a glassy smooth surface.
Around 500 grit. They still cut slow and are acceptable for kitchen cutlery and pocket knives w/ 420 to 425M steel. You can enhance this by procuring some SiC grit of about 400 and rubbing it on to the surface of One side of your stone. This will help it cut better. Then use it and let us know. DM
Click to expand...
Well, I got around to conditioning that stone with the 400x SiC and used it to finish sharpen my HC kitchen knife. It's pretty much exactly how you said it would be! I can feel it cutting, but it is slow cutting. Leaves a nice finish. unfortunately I can't seem to take any decent pics of the edge. I think I need better lighting and a better camera.:(
 
Well, good. You'll figure it out. That grade stone is hard to find today and I think it is a more useful stone and grit. A more general purpose stone. Whereas the finer Arkansas stones are for polishing or a straight razor. DM
 
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