"surgical black" Arkansas stone... NOT

Saddan you bought all those huge atoma plates up to 1200 grit? Holy crap. That is some serious cash!
I actually played around with this c12k stone tonight. At first I did not care for it, but after reading all the Saddan comments about lapping, I lightly ran a coarse, then fine, then x fine DMT stones over the c12k and WOW! The stone is acualy a lot closer to what I was hoping my ark would be! I think I am going to try burnishing the stone as ekretz mentioned. This c12k is no ark i'm sure, but I am VERY impressed with the polish for this 25 dollar 8x2x1 stone. The stone is indeed a bit slow, but it lays down a real smooth polished edge.
They seem to get mixed results. Ekretz I am indeed using these stones for knives, I do not own a straight razor.
When you guys are talking about lapping, your talking just putting kind of a new roughness on the stones face, or are you talking about like down on hands and knees, grinding the living hell out of the thing?
When I think of lapping, I think of flattening japanese whetstones.
I'm definitely going to try again with a more expensive ark, maybe i'll have to send it to one of you guys to have you condition it a bit for me? : )
I like the looks of the translucent surgical black.
 
Lapping can be just for flatness or also for finish. It depends on the diamond plate or grit of the wet/dry or loose grit you use. Burnishing is really only beneficial on a very hard (strong binder) stone like the Arkansas stones, a softer stone will just shed its abrasive particles if they dull. I'm not sure where the PHIG (People's Hone of Indeterminate Grit, another name for the C12k) falls on that scale or what it's composed of as I've never had one.
 
+1 on eKretz's post the arkies are fine stones if the contidition of the stone matches the work, my sb cuts well and it is like looking in a mirror, leaves a bevel looking like a mirror as well, if you want quick get a lower grit stone plain and simple. if you want a high polish smooth edge get the arkie prepped. a soft, medium, and hard along with a sb or translucent progression will yield as fine an edge as anyone would want for a knife.
 
I definitely was not ready to do all this work to a black ark stone. This is some seriously good advice and when I do get mine I will definitely come back to this post.
On an interested note, I have been trying different things with this C12k stone I got for 25 bucks. Holy cow it can put a wonderful polish on an edge!
I did kind of what Saddan was talking about, and what eKratz was saying.
When I first pulled it out of the box it was rather mediocre. So I figured I would try doing some weird stuff with it since its cheap.
I lapped it on SiC and float glass, then I touched up the surface with a coarse dmt, then fine dmt, then a bit of Xfine dmt. I then went to burnishing with a old chisel and BAM! This stone is ridiculous fine!
Problem is, it is not as slow wearing as an ark, so this process will have to be done over and over again if you use it like a Japanese whetstone.
-If you soak it for 10 minutes or so and do the knife scrubbing technique, you will get a great polish but you will quickly dish the stone, I have been using it more like a light polishing stone.
I just slop a little water on the surface without a soak time, and do alternating western strokes, no scrubbing. I think if I use this stone this way with light pressure on the stroke I will not need to lap the stone so often.
The burnishing really did help, so did the grit lapping. Thanks for the info from both of you two!
This stone right now is about as fine as I was hoping the ark would have been, I now only wonder if I had done these same things to the ark if I would be doing really well with it lol.

-This c12k stone for 25 bucks at a retail store is a great deal, try it out.
Still going to buy a translucent black ark in due time-oh and spyderco UF stone is still freaking awesome. My favorite stone ever so far. THANKS DUDES!
 
Last edited:
eKretz said:
Actually that's another misconception: you don't need much more than a few drops of oil either. Just enough to keep the stone from being dry. It's not messy at all in my opinion. The problem is that most people use way way too much, not knowing any better, and so the misconception perpetuates.

If I remember correctly Eytan, you have a good number of Japanese natural stones, right? Well, the Arkansas finishing stones (black and translucent varieties) with oil put on a finish very similar to the slurry finish from a JNat. You really ought to try one.
Click to expand...

I'll get one,
Any recommendation? (where to buy)

thank you
 
Dan's or Natural Whetstone are both good solid sellers, and some guys like Hall's but their stones don't come as flat from what I've heard (and trust me, you do not want to have to lap an Ark that is very far out from flat).
 
BTW, if any of you guys ever have trouble getting a finer finish from any of your stones the burnishing method works on harder stones, but on stones with softer binder I have had some good success also using a rubbing stone to smooth the surface of the stone. I use a piece I cut from my Suehiro Gokumyo 20,000 grit synthetic stone. It works much the same as burnishing a hard stone with a chisel, but instead you use the rubbing stone (make sure both the stone and the rubbing stone are lapped flat first) with very light pressure and just evenly rub the surface of the stone while both are dry with very light pressure. I first rub longitudinally, then perpendicular to that, and last in overlapping circles. All with almost zero pressure, just enough to keep the stones touching flat. Afterwards rub the surface of the stone under running water to get rid of any loose grit and go to work. This method requires you to use VERY light pressure when honing/sharpening though, or the stone will shed grit particles and revert to it's natural coarseness. I usually only use this method for straight razor honing but it's worth mentioning if anyone else wants to try it. It makes a significant difference in the resultant finish on my Shapton Pro stones for instance.
 
WHOA DUDES! So after I bought that Pinnacle surgical black from Woodcraft, I went on their site and posted a bad review, and GUESS WHAT!?!!?
One of their service people emailed me to tell me their techs hand picked a good one for me, said they wanted to sent it out. I told them hey I already returned the stone so it is kind of too late to switch it, THEY SENT IT TO ME ANYWAY FREE OF CHARGE AND SHIPPING!!!
Wow... that is some seriously good customer service... I guess I will be burnishing/lapping the surface and trying again. I will update you guys on how it goes.
-Still loving this c12k stone that I burnished the surface on too, still have not had to lap it yet either.
 
Dans are the best imo, the black is an awesome thing to use. I used to work for a machinist, and he used a Dan's black stone for a variety of polishing tasks and was always happy with the finished result.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
I quit buying from dans. I ordered 4 different translucent stones. And they sent me a white hard all 4 times. Called them and they swore up and down that they were translucent stones. I prder from the company that bought out halls.
 
eKretz said:
Dan's or Natural Whetstone are both good solid sellers, and some guys like Hall's but their stones don't come as flat from what I've heard (and trust me, you do not want to have to lap an Ark that is very far out from flat).
Click to expand...

Thanks, got it!
 
I did some lapping of my free black Pinnacle stone. I have got the surface to a high shine and it is very quiet when you sharpen across the surface. Thinking if I want to go ahead and use oil or keep it a water stone. I must say though, the surface is still not as nice as my C12K after conditioning it in pretty much the same fashion. I spent a lot more burnishing time with the Surgical black. C12K is still a lot better. I imagine over time this black ark will become fantastic though.
The manufacturers says that Black Ark stones will last you a lifetime as long as you use it with honing oil, I wonder if using water is just as good. The water seems to bead right off as it is. I guess since it is free might as well just use oil anyway right?
 
All the Arkansas stone users say oil. I use oil on mine, dont care how much anyone argues it. U will ruin one without oil. If its worked and made millions of scary sharp edges, why change it? And yes give it some use, and you will love it. Finest Arkansas stone you can get imo. Just with oil every 5 or so uses. Scrub the stone with dawn and a stiff scrub brush to keep the stones pores un clogged.
 
Glytch5 said:
WHOA DUDES! So after I bought that Pinnacle surgical black from Woodcraft, I went on their site and posted a bad review, and GUESS WHAT!?!!?
One of their service people emailed me to tell me their techs hand picked a good one for me, said they wanted to sent it out. I told them hey I already returned the stone so it is kind of too late to switch it, THEY SENT IT TO ME ANYWAY FREE OF CHARGE AND SHIPPING!!!
Wow... that is some seriously good customer service... I guess I will be burnishing/lapping the surface and trying again. I will update you guys on how it goes.
-Still loving this c12k stone that I burnished the surface on too, still have not had to lap it yet either.
Click to expand...


I haven't purchased an Arkansas stone in years but one tip I can give you is to try using Simple Green soap on ANY of the "Oil" stones. I find the stones cut faster and smoother and haven't use oil in years on a stone.
 
Simple green may, i have never used it. But ive seen Arkansas stones ruined "experimenting" my only argument is. Old timers have used oil for 100 years or so.. And its produced great results. Why do any different? Also i use lots of very old Arkansas stones that have been used with oil. And once an arkie has been used with oil, its difficult to get them to be used with water.
 
Cool guys, went ahead and put some honing oil on there. Old Timers always know best buckman110 lol.
This thread has helped me quite a bit, not only with arky stones, but it taught me how to condition the surface of any stone to get the full polishing benefits out of it. I definitely learned some valuable lessons on this post.
I appreciate the help from everyone. Hopefully next time someone asks a similar question about surgical blacks, someone will link them to this thread! Cheers!
-Max
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top