BJE
Basic Member
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2006
- Messages
- 3,079
You may remeber my other thread a couple days back when I asked about the Viking Whetstones from Rag Weed Forge. Well, I got my stone in today and want to do a little write up to help others that may have the same questions I had.
First impressions upon opening the package is that is is thicker than I imagined, somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 inches thick is pretty close. It is about three inches long and about as wide as it is thick, getting wider toward the bottom. It is a very good looking stone, one of the reasons I like natural stones is because of the random colors and patterns. Mine has alot of green and red along with some white and translucent colors. Here is a pic I borrowed from Ragnar
They look thin in the pic, but they are almost as thick as they are wide. They are not too heavy to wear around your neck (and I hate wearing jewelry) and the leather cord is kinda masculine.
Now on to the important stuff, how it sharpens. The stone is extremely smooth, maybe even a little smoother than the UF sharpmaker stones and definately finer/smoother than hard black or translucent arkansas. Makes you wonder if these even remove any metal, they do but VERY little. They will not sharpen a dull edge back to sharp, but they will take a sharp edge to a whole new level. I took my Case trapper in CV to a soft arkansas stone and got it very sharp, it would shave hair but not like a razor. I then made a few passes on the Viking Whetstone and I liked the results. It shaved hair with little effort and seemed completely burrless (much like I experience on the SM but more polished and not as toothy). It really sank in how sharp and polished it got the knife when I was trimming the leather cord and sunk the knife into my thumb. I never cut myself, I handle more knives a day than some Case and Victorinox employees combined
and hardly ever have an accident. I also have pretty rough hands as I am in the auto industry and work with them all day. But before I knew what was happening I felt the skin on my thumb pop and knew what happened. The wierd part was that I wasn't thinking about my thumb but I was smiling ear to ear because I knew it had to be one sharp knife to do that. I didn't even feel any pain until I injected super glue in the cut to stop the bleeding. I then tested the edge on more disposable materials such as rope and I really like the edge this stone leaves, very polished and fine. When sharpening, it doesn't feel like the stone is removing metal, almost like the knife is just gliding across the surface. I really like this stone and plan to use it as a finishing stone.
Sorry for the long winded review, just wanted to share my experience with it since their aren't many others like it for people to learn from. An interesting fact is that the package says it rates a 7 on the mohs scale, I figured it would be harder that that but it is still plenty hard for my uses. It also states that the stone is jasper and was probably mined in either Germany or France but came from York, England. The Vikings used them to sharpen their blades, wear as jewelry, and trade with.
Thanks for listening,
http://.jpg
First impressions upon opening the package is that is is thicker than I imagined, somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 inches thick is pretty close. It is about three inches long and about as wide as it is thick, getting wider toward the bottom. It is a very good looking stone, one of the reasons I like natural stones is because of the random colors and patterns. Mine has alot of green and red along with some white and translucent colors. Here is a pic I borrowed from Ragnar
They look thin in the pic, but they are almost as thick as they are wide. They are not too heavy to wear around your neck (and I hate wearing jewelry) and the leather cord is kinda masculine.
Now on to the important stuff, how it sharpens. The stone is extremely smooth, maybe even a little smoother than the UF sharpmaker stones and definately finer/smoother than hard black or translucent arkansas. Makes you wonder if these even remove any metal, they do but VERY little. They will not sharpen a dull edge back to sharp, but they will take a sharp edge to a whole new level. I took my Case trapper in CV to a soft arkansas stone and got it very sharp, it would shave hair but not like a razor. I then made a few passes on the Viking Whetstone and I liked the results. It shaved hair with little effort and seemed completely burrless (much like I experience on the SM but more polished and not as toothy). It really sank in how sharp and polished it got the knife when I was trimming the leather cord and sunk the knife into my thumb. I never cut myself, I handle more knives a day than some Case and Victorinox employees combined
and hardly ever have an accident. I also have pretty rough hands as I am in the auto industry and work with them all day. But before I knew what was happening I felt the skin on my thumb pop and knew what happened. The wierd part was that I wasn't thinking about my thumb but I was smiling ear to ear because I knew it had to be one sharp knife to do that. I didn't even feel any pain until I injected super glue in the cut to stop the bleeding. I then tested the edge on more disposable materials such as rope and I really like the edge this stone leaves, very polished and fine. When sharpening, it doesn't feel like the stone is removing metal, almost like the knife is just gliding across the surface. I really like this stone and plan to use it as a finishing stone. Sorry for the long winded review, just wanted to share my experience with it since their aren't many others like it for people to learn from. An interesting fact is that the package says it rates a 7 on the mohs scale, I figured it would be harder that that but it is still plenty hard for my uses. It also states that the stone is jasper and was probably mined in either Germany or France but came from York, England. The Vikings used them to sharpen their blades, wear as jewelry, and trade with.
Thanks for listening,
http://.jpg
I've had one of the original stones for years and use it daily for refining and deburring. 