Help identifying stone

Y

Yar

Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
131
I picked up this stone at an estate sale. It came in a wooden box

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It's in pretty good shape but it does have a large chunk missing on one end

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It's very smooth on both sides with no discernible difference in grit or texture. Is this considered a honing stone or is it just a sharpening stone with very high grit?

Both sides:

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You need to clean the stone to expose it's color and texture in order for me to give you an accurate assessment. Guessing it looks maybe like a Arkansas washita.? DM
 
Looks like the Black Arkansas bench stone I inherited from a great uncle. It gives an extraordinary finishing edge, particularly on my high carbon knives and chisels. Looks like a great find, congrats.
 
David Martin said:
You need to clean the stone to expose it's color and texture in order for me to give you an accurate assessment. Guessing it looks maybe like a Arkansas washita.? DM
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What's the best way to clean it? I can tell it's been used with oil because water just beads up and rolls off.
 
If you have chemicals; use acetone, a wire brush and elbow grease. If you have no chemicals, use comet, a wire brush and elbow grease. Rinse with water outdoors. DM
 
Just my two cents. This old beauty looks to me to be brown in color. I don't think that it's a black hard. I would hazard a guess that it might be a Washita or India stone. Hard to tell the grit from a photo. To clean, I would try some mechanics hand cleaner and scrub with an old toothbrush. I did that once and it worked well. Barkeepers Friend might be good as well.
 
The usual approach amongst vintage hone collectors is to soak in Simple Green for a few days (or weeks).
 
I've had good luck putting old stones in cold soapy water in a cake pan, then putting them in the oven. The water cannot get hotter than 212 regardless of oven temperature. Make sure the stone is covered and that evaporation does not uncover the stone. Lots of oil and gunk will be released. I do this when my wife is not home.
 
Take a handful of dry sand and put it on a concrete floor, proceed to dress the stone. You should have a functional stone in about 5 minutes. Dressing the stone involves grinding in circles, figure eights, rotating your grip and watching the dark spots disappear as the stone flattens.
 
There is a difference between cleaning & flattening. Looking at the photos I don't think the stone needs flattening, just cleaning. Should it need flattening mine took more like an hour of grinding to achieve. Your call. DM
 
I have the exact same stone and box .. I use it all the time on carbon and stainless. It cuts well using water but you may need to flatten and clean it a bit (coarse flat concrete for flattening and a good soak and wire brush for cleaning) and work around the chip.
 
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Hey all I was afk for a bit. Here is the stone after some scrubbing with acetone and then soaking in soapy water for a few days

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tsarloff said:
I have the exact same stone and box .. I use it all the time on carbon and stainless. It cuts well using water but you may need to flatten and clean it a bit (coarse flat concrete for flattening and a good soak and wire brush for cleaning) and work around the chip.
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Is this best for finishing the blade? It feels pretty fine, not really coarse at all.
 
Looking at these photos I thought it could be 2 different stones. But perhaps the line I'm seeing on the side is made from the box. It still needs more cleaning and some leveling.
To me it looks like a Washita Arkansas stone. Which are around 500 grit. DM
 
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