"surgical black" Arkansas stone... NOT

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Glytch5

Joined
Sep 11, 2014
Messages
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hey guys what is up? I generally use my edge pro or sharp maker, which both systems I am very proficient with however I do prefer some hand sharpening and touching up from time to time.
I had been using my sharpmaker UF stones as fine bench stones after my DMTs for quite a while, but was getting tired of not having a good full stone.
After watching some youtube videos from Richard Blaine's cooking channel, I noticed he seems to really like his "black arky" I thought heck, that seems like it would be a cool finishing stone doesn't it? Its natural, super fine comes in a cool box.
SO, I went to Woodcraft to sniff around and there it was, a wooden box that reads "PinnAcle professional quality tools" and underneath said "Surgical Black"
I thought SWEET! It was about 55 bucks.

Well upon bringing it home the first thing I noticed is how NOT black it was, it was more of a very dark speckled grey ish color. Upon adding water it did get darker. After using the stone I noticed man this stone is NOT very fine. I tried to polish up a couple edges and it really brought my polish down.
If this is what you use to sharpen "surgical" tools count me out!
Naturalwaterstone.com says his standard black arks are around 1200 grit, and his transclucent stones are 1400 I believe. I have seen some "surgical black" stones advertised as up to 4000 grit. Either way they are supposed to be a VERY fine stone. My God do I feel ripped off. This stone can't be any finer than 1000 TOPS. It polishes worse than my spyderco medium brown stone.

Is pinnacle just a poor quality piece of novaculite? I really wish I could return the thing I honestly will not use it again. I tried it on many knives, just not very fine at all.
I saw one website advertise their black ark as a 900 grit, I thought that sounded about right or closer. This stone sucks!
Any thoughts or advice would be great THANKS! :thumbup:
 
Sometimes the surface texture of arkies can be rough , the two I just picked up needed work before they produced desirable results.

Use a coarse diamond plate (DMT XXC or Atoma 140) , under running water lightly lap the surface until it becomes consistant. Progress through to finer plates and voila :)
 
Allot of times you have to lap the stones. There are different grades of black Arkansas stones. Imo your not going to get a real high grade black that cheap. Your looking around $120.00 for a decent one. Thoes stones are very rare and getting increasingly hard to come by. Look at RH PREYDA stones. Very nice quality. They recently bought out halls, and there mines. :)
 
buckman110 said:
Allot of times you have to lap the stones. There are different grades of black Arkansas stones. Imo your not going to get a real high grade black that cheap. Your looking around $120.00 for a decent one. Thoes stones are very rare and getting increasingly hard to come by. Look at RH PREYDA stones. Very nice quality. They recently bought out halls, and there mines. :)
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Thanks for the replies from both of ya. What stone did you get for 120?
I don't think im going to lap this stone and wear the heck out of my DMT plates doing it, i'm going to attempt to just return it to Woodcraft. They have a pretty loose return policy.
I would be willing to spend over 100 bucks if I knew for sure it is going to be a nice finishing stone.
How about this?:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8-x-2-x-1-A...739126?pt=US_Knives_Tools&hash=item3ceb1f5db6

Does this look worth getting? Ever heard of naturalwhetstone.com?

I feel like the spyderco UF bench stone would be finer. Hopefully I can return the thing. I feel like if I lapped the surface it would make it rougher, the surface is smooth and dead flat, its just not a fine stone from what I can tell, and like I was saying I really don't feel like ripping of the diamonds out of my plates, or buying a big atoma or DMT plate.
Thanks very much though! : ):thumbup:
 
I agree with the above for the most part. The stones are lapped at the quarry (soft, hard, translucent, surgical black) with 400 grit wet/dry, at least that's what one of the suppliers told me.They have to break in for a few to have any idea what you've actually gotten, is not really necessary to lap them if they're flat and not glazed over.

That said, I returned my surgical black to the Woodcraft (on Jefferson/E.Henrietta, am in your neck of the woods) after it appeared to be way too rough for my purposes. This was a handful of years ago. I did pick up a translucent after, and cannot remember from where - will get back on that. It is a real nice stone and can produce extremely fine edges. Also, another forum member gifted me a large surgical black that needed only a bit of lapping to be very serviceable - produces a very fine edge as well. The other Pinnacle stones I have are very good, my Washita from them is a great stone, but all naturals have to be evaluated independently.

Most of the surgical blacks and translucent are rated from 1200-2k, making them approx 6-8k in Japanese waterstone scale. Due to how the Arkansas removes steel, the edge they make tends to be a finer version of the rated grit. With proper progression and some patience these are still used by some to hone straight razors prior to stropping.
 
I wouldn't chance it. Unless you actually inspect the translucent with a light dont buy. Because alot of hard white Arkansas stones are being passed off as translucent stones here lately.
 
HeavyHanded said:
I agree with the above for the most part. The stones are lapped at the quarry (soft, hard, translucent, surgical black) with 400 grit wet/dry, at least that's what one of the suppliers told me.They have to break in for a few to have any idea what you've actually gotten, is not really necessary to lap them if they're flat and not glazed over.

That said, I returned my surgical black to the Woodcraft (on Jefferson/E.Henrietta, am in your neck of the woods) after it appeared to be way too rough for my purposes. This was a handful of years ago. I did pick up a translucent after, and cannot remember from where - will get back on that. It is a real nice stone and can produce extremely fine edges. Also, another forum member gifted me a large surgical black that needed only a bit of lapping to be very serviceable - produces a very fine edge as well. The other Pinnacle stones I have are very good, my Washita from them is a great stone, but all naturals have to be evaluated independently.

Most of the surgical blacks and translucent are rated from 1200-2k, making them approx 6-8k in Japanese waterstone scale. Due to how the Arkansas removes steel, the edge they make tends to be a finer version of the rated grit. With proper progression and some patience these are still used by some to hone straight razors prior to stropping.
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-Cool yeah that is the same place I bought mine at the woodcraft in Henrietta off Jefferson. I am glad to hear they will most likely take it back. I think im going to avoid the arkansas stones until I can afford a really nice translucent of some kind. They took the surgical black back without hassling you?

I tried breaking it in, i've probably spend about an hour or more of constant sharpening with it on a few different kitchen knives back and fourth from that and my spyderco ceramics just to fully verify the polish is considerable worse.

I would love to know where you got your translucent.

Also Buckman110 (cool knife by the way) Do you know of any real good sources other than dans, and naturalwhetstones.com or Hall to buy from?
 
I always buy the surgical and the translucents from dans whetstones, yes they need lapped out and polished either stone should be mirror polished before you try to really sharpen on it. I go to 2k on the stone with wd progression and afterwards I use a wood chisel to polish the stone. if you want a very nice fine stone check out the apache strata and apache reds. I love them they put my arkie to shame and yield a mirror polish every time. the stratas and reds are both water stones but either would work with oil. I wouldn't swap either of mine for any arkie I ever had or saw.i make knives and when the customers ask I tell them it is the finest stone you can own. it compares with the finest Escher you will ever see.
 
The Arkansas stone (at least the black and translucent grades) seem to be very misunderstood. I am of the opinion that the distributors of these stones would be well served by going on an educational campaign as regards their stones. They are able to produce among the very finest edges when used correctly.

I am going to say something that will probably be a bit controversial now: lapping the stone flat is necessary, however in my experience polishing with wet/dry or what have you doesn't make as much of a difference as some people seem to think it does. Most people get an Ark and try to hone with it as-is, then are disappointed at the coarse edge - but the stone hadn't broken in to its finest finish yet. They gradually smooth out with use and provide a finer and finer finish until they level out. This is why most recommend polishing the stones. I have a translucent black stone that I flattened on both sides. One side is lapped with 120 grit loose SiC and the other is lapped through to 20,000 grit. As you can imagine they look very different and also cut at slightly different speeds. However the finish on oil is not as different as you would think. There is a reason for that though.

When most guys recommend polishing an Ark, they also recommend burnishing the stone with hardened steel - in the shape of a chisel or flat-bladed knife. What this does is remove any leftover loose grit particles and reduce the height of and slightly dull any microscopic peaks that remain. This gives a shallower scratch depth and a bit better finish. What I found on my Arks, is that the coarse lapped side can cut almost as smooth as the fine lapped side if you go through the chisel routine on it also.

If you want to finish on water however, the finer lapped side will usually be much finer than the coarse side, because the stone works by a slightly different mechanism on water. With water the stone has more of a burnishing effect on the steel - and for that, the finer the surface the better the polish.
 
Interesting post,

I have Zero experience with Arkansas stones, since I don't like to work with oil.
Thought I'd give it a try with water.

That discussion made me want to give it a try :)
 
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.
 
Glytch5 said:
-Cool yeah that is the same place I bought mine at the woodcraft in Henrietta off Jefferson. I am glad to hear they will most likely take it back. I think im going to avoid the arkansas stones until I can afford a really nice translucent of some kind. They took the surgical black back without hassling you?

I tried breaking it in, i've probably spend about an hour or more of constant sharpening with it on a few different kitchen knives back and fourth from that and my spyderco ceramics just to fully verify the polish is considerable worse.

I would love to know where you got your translucent.

Also Buckman110 (cool knife by the way) Do you know of any real good sources other than dans, and naturalwhetstones.com or Hall to buy from?
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The translucent came from BestSharpeningSupplies. The Surgical Black that was gifted to me...Pinnacle!

They do have to break in, and maybe a lapping is not such a bad idea.

Woodcraft was very good about the return, I had the receipt, the stone and box were like-new, and it had only been a week or two out of the store.

IIRC Arkansas stones cut in two ways - one is the surface texture, which can be influenced by lapping to some extent. The second is by sharp-edged voids in the stone, which cut like a cheese grater. The stone slowly fractures down and these edges break in a manner that they always stay sharp-edged. This is why the edge looks so polished as it cuts, it isn't only scraped by points like other abrasive means. I have to do some work with a microscope and these stones, because I've never really verified that - it does make sense.

Pretty sure as you get to the softer grades like a Washita or soft that the voids become so large the surface does cut somewhat more like a regular stone, and as the density increases into the hard and translucent/surgical black, they cut more like the cheese grater. The stones are rated by "grit" value, but really all the abrasives run between 20 and 5 micron (IIRC). The differences all come down to the density of the stone - how large or small the voids are.
 
I think it's more like a surface area in contact with the steel thing. It takes so much pressure for steel to be ground away, and the less area in contact with the stone at any given time (i.e. a less dense stone) the deeper and more ragged it will cut. That has to do with pressure per unit of area. I believe the surface texture only comes into play in the very beginning, when the stone is freshly lapped. As the sharp abrasive particles in the stone break down or dull, they tend to round over or flatten out, increasing the surface area in contact with whatever is being honed, thereby making the scratch depth shallower, the finish finer and the cutting speed slower. I also believe - by examining the finish of test pieces under magnification - that as the abrasive particles wear, they shed bits of themselves into the oil, creating a similar surface/finish effect to Japanese water stones. The resultant finish is a hazy mirror, just like a Jnat finish. This release of particles happens very slowly though, and not a whole lot is released, as can be seen by how fast the cutting speed slows when compared to a freshly-lapped stone.
 
Wow guys THANK YOU all for the input. This is great!
I unfortunately just got back from returning the black ark to woodcraft, they took it back to questions asked. I went ahead and got the spyderco UF benchstone. Man do I love this ceramic! I just put a very nice polish on the knife I spent like 30 minutes trying to polish last night the Pinnacle surgical ark.

I also picked up a C12k stone they had for cheap, going to be looking forward to messing around with that. It was only 22 bucks so I said what the heck can't hurt right?

When I bought the ark I was not planning to buy a "project stone" I wanted a finishing stone. I had no idea I was going to have to spend hours conditioning the stone by lapping it with my dia sharps, or using the chisel method as was stated above. I still plan to buy a translucent ark from naturawhetstones.com in the near future.

So If I sat there and ran a chisel along the surface as if I was sharpening it for a couple hours it would have smoothed out? I guess I need to read up more on this because I definitely am interested in a nice ark.

I think I am going to quit using my DMT dia sharps, anyone want to trade me a good black ark for 2 DMT dia sharps 2x6s that are double sided? I got the coarse/xcoarse and the fine/xfine.
I have decided I really do not care for diamond sharpening stones. I do most of my sharpening on the EdgePro, or my sharp maker. I want to have a decent array of hand stones for kitchen knives and repair work, I plan to get a very coarse Japanese waterstone, and a medium, then go into the 3 grits of Spyderco ceramics, and use a really nice arky as a finisher.

-do those strata and apache red stones require a lot of conditioning? I've not heard much about them.

Again thanks dudes, this has been quite a lesson in buying arks, I will be much more careful next time.
Ps: I will let ya guys know how the C12k turned out, my expectations are not high but who knows. LATER!
 
kn4wd said:
I always buy the surgical and the translucents from dans whetstones, yes they need lapped out and polished either stone should be mirror polished before you try to really sharpen on it. I go to 2k on the stone with wd progression and afterwards I use a wood chisel to polish the stone. if you want a very nice fine stone check out the apache strata and apache reds. I love them they put my arkie to shame and yield a mirror polish every time. the stratas and reds are both water stones but either would work with oil. I wouldn't swap either of mine for any arkie I ever had or saw.i make knives and when the customers ask I tell them it is the finest stone you can own. it compares with the finest Escher you will ever see.
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Your not supposed to polish a Arkansas stone to a "mirror" finish. If you lap them to fine, they will essentially stop cutting. Reason being Arkansas stones cut much slower than other stones and actually polish as they cut. No other stone in the world has thoes properties. If you will be patient with some good Arkansas stones, you will forget about them water stones.
 
buckman110 said:
Your not supposed to polish a Arkansas stone to a "mirror" finish. If you lap them to fine, they will essentially stop cutting. Reason being Arkansas stones cut much slower than other stones and actually polish as they cut. No other stone in the world has thoes properties. If you will be patient with some good Arkansas stones, you will forget about them water stones.
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I think you are going to have to expand on that. All stones "cut" steel , waterstones , oil stones , arkansas stones , Jnats , Coticules , they all cut steel. The scratches are of varying shapes , and sizes , but they all cut. Even a 30k shapton cuts steel , even if you cant see the scratches with the naked eye. Polishing simply happens when the scratches get small enough that the finish becomes more mirrorlike.

Both of my Arkies needed work before they were up to par. I have a coarse and a hard one (not surgical). The coarse one was extremely coarse and scratchy , too uneven leaving stray scratches that were much deeper than they needed to be. 2 minutes with a 140 Atoma and that was corrected. Now its smooth yet coarse , and more importantly even. The hard one needed work as well , so it got a full progression from Atoma 140 through to the 1200. Took 10 minutes maybe? Now the surface is glasslike. It leaves a near mirror finish with some patience.

A lapped/polished stone will not "stop cutting" , the scratches will simply be smaller than they were originally , which is 100% what Ekretz's goal was from what I am given to understand. His pictures and work with the stones are what got me interested in them to begin with. That and my love of all natural sharpening stones I suppose.

I use mine with cool soapy water , works well. The coarse one needs a 5 minute soak to hold its water well though.
 
An Arkansas stone cuts very slow, especially the higher the grade/grit. When you lap one so much, they do almost stop cutting. Ive got a surgical black i lapped wayyy to far on accident and its useless. Might as well be trying to use a piece of glass.

Ive got one old Arkansas that i think is a true hard, but i wish i knew more about it. I lapped it, and its awesome. U would have to use it to see. Its one of the prettiest stones ive ever seen.
 
They don't stop cutting when finely lapped, but they do slow to a crawl. Lapped or burnished very finely, the Arks also need more pressure to cut, which makes it a thing not suitable for beginning sharpeners - one little slip with any pressure concentrated on the apex instead of the bevel and you can kiss your edge goodbye. Lapping that fine is pretty unnecessary and really actually probably useless for anything but micro bevels or a straight razor, and you will need a lot of laps on the stone to get a finished edge. But when it's done it gives an outstanding edge. Some of the very best straight razor shaves I've ever had were from finely lapped Arkansas stones on oil. Water does not work as well in my experience, but does still give a very good edge. In my testing, I get cutting with oil, and only burnishing with water once the stone is settled. So on oil you get a JNat like hazy mirror finish with a fine scratch pattern, and on water a bright mirror almost completely void of any real scratch marks. This knowledge has come from hours upon hours during days upon days of honing test pieces (hardened stainless flats, HSS tooling test pieces, old files, knives, razors etc.) into the wee hours of the night, lol.

I would recommend anyone that wants to use an Ark for knives use a fairly coarse lap, maybe something like a 400ish grit diamond plate or wet/dry then take a chisel or what have you and give the stone a burnishing... Use whatever medium you'll be using to hone/sharpen - water or oil. You'll see that the stone will cut FAST for a short time then gradually begin to smooth out. Start with light pressure until you have evenly covered the surface of the stone with burnishing strokes for a few minutes, then gradually add a bit more over the next 5 to 10 minutes. End pressure should be something on the order of maybe 5 pounds of pressure with a 1" wide chisel. I prefer using a convex bevel on the chisel so I can go quick and there's no chance of the corners digging in. That's all it takes - 15 or 20 minutes max will get you there. No need to burnish for hours on end for knife sharpening.

Hopefully this info will be useful to some guys who have tried the old Arks and given up on them too quick or who will be trying one for the first time. There's a reason they were considered one of the finest sharpening stones available anywhere back in the day. The modern age has everyone wanting everything "right now" if not yesterday, and that I think is why the Arks don't see as much common use these days. They do work quite a bit slower than the modern synthetic stones, but can yield at least as good an edge, if not far better than most.
 
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