Old Arkansas stone on cedar base

W

willis

Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
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I bought this in the early eighties and after finding it in a box in the attic I remember why it was set aside,the top of the stone is not flat.One corner has a slope to it and I thought about using an 8 dollar Home Depot coarse tile abrading stone and lapping it flat but first put it in a pot of water with a little dawn dish soap and brought it to a boil hoping to clean it and see if it would soften the glue holding it to the base enough to pry it loose.It worked and after scrubbing the bottom of the stone with a green pad and comet and putting back in the boiling soapy water to remove all traces of the glue I checked it with a steel rule and was pleased to find it very level.I sanded the cedar and am thinking of regluing it bad side down, like the rascal at the plant should have done 30 years ago,on the cedar block.It felt and acted like a soft Arkansas on the Old Timer 8OT's carbon steel blades I tested it on.
 
I bought it from the PX and seem to remember it being a Buck product but no logo on the base of the cedar so who knows,I also got a Smith's tri hone around that same time.Sure feels like a soft but a medium it could be,it has kind of a pretty coloration.
 
I bought it from the PX and seem to remember it being a Buck product but no logo on the base of the cedar so who knows,I also got a Smith's tri hone around that same time.Sure feels like a soft but a medium it could be,it has kind of a pretty coloration.
 
I don't think I'd re-glue it to the board. Instead make a box for it and you can level the one side later. Giving you two sides for sharpening. Mottled like that, still it has a lot of black in it. I would label it a true hard. Less than a black or Translucent but still hard and fine. DM
 
David,I have some sections from the trunk of a cedar about 15" in dia.and 24" long that are going with me to the skunk works dept of Becker Knife and Tool(Ethan Beckers home shop)next time I am there.I want to band saw thin slabs and run them through the planer to have material to make boxes for several stones I have.The base would be better used to put a piece of vegetable tanned 5/6 oz. leather I have that has been cased and rolled with as much pressure as I could put on it to compress it and then clamped between two sheets of glass to dry.I want a small strop of plain leather with no abrasive paste or powders and I think that block is just the right size.Hard Arkansas you think?I thought soft just from the look and feel and the feed back from the few swipes of the carbon steel sheepsfoot blade of my 8OT,but I do remember getting nowhere trying to sharpen a Buck 110 and a Gerber Folding Sportsman,both with hard stainless blades,so maybe it is a hard one.
 
I am no certified Arkansas stone grader, so we are just taking a guess at this stone. I don't see many mottled like that. DM
 
I put a piece of thin 5/6oz leather under warm water till pliable,squeezed most of the water out with a towel then rolled it with a big polished deep well socket with it smooth side down on a plate of glass.I rolled in all directions pushing down as hard as I could til my arms were numb then put another plate of glass on top and weighted it down with a can of coleman fuel with the socket and some hunks of english flint and obsidian to make as flat and thin as possible.That stone is 5" x 1 5/8" x 1/2" and after using it on my Spyderco Caly 3's VG-10 blade I am leaning toward medium and could feel it cut and the bevels were smoother than the fine dmt that went before.Cuts and polishes,I like it.
 
it is a hard I have one just like it. a smith with the buck logo. I took mine off the base lapped and beveled both sides so it would be totally usable
 
Well that explains why it did nothing to those stainless steels in the 110 and that Gerber,now that Gerber had some hard steel and it never got sharp till I got a lansky with diamond hones and don't it suck that a company like Gerber who used to make as good as you could get blades now peddles stuff that is such low quality?Puma is another that comes to mind,I rue the loss of a 1969 Puma Hunters Friend that was my first real knife and I pawned it when I was in high school to get money to see AC-DC and Alice Cooper in concert,oh for a time machine.Hard Arkansas,well it still is harder than the Lily White,but not even close to that hard one that is so black it looks blue so in that context it could be considered medium.
 
the blues,pinks, yellows, even whit comes in hard grade, the key is density or weight. I will lay you odds if you get a knife you think is sharp and run it about 100 licks each way you will have a mirror for a bevel. I have finished straight razors on mine and got a decent shave. get the 110 sharp and try it again,you may be surprised as to the quality of the edge. the stones may have come from the same big one, if so the yellow is almost translucent on that end. my cousin,who passed around 15 or so yrs ago said it reminded him of the old twilight zone intro. my black is more of a twilight blue with yellow and white spots. I don't have the ability her to post pics but yours looks exactly like mine.may be a little more light on one end but very close.
 
it was bought so many yrs ago the package is gone but it was in a pack of two a soft and hard the soft went quickly. the hard is still here. I got iot a walmart, my dad was alive and with me when I bought it along with two buck mustangs, one for him and one for me.
 
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