Black Arkansas stone

Have any of you used a Black Arkansas Stone as the final stage in sharpening a knife?

Is the difference of a Hard Arkansas Stone noticeable?

I have not, but I do use a hard one for knives I want to hold their edge. If I’m more concerned w/ super sharp I’ll finish w/ buffing wheel.

I have one and it works great. They are designed to sharpen the old style razors or to put the finest keen edge on a knife blade.

Thanks for the feedback. I’m going to order a small one just to try out with my other stones (in addition to stropping).

let us know if you find a good deal

I found a good deal but it’s a small stone :slight_smile: On ebay you can get a 1” x 3” stone for $8 including shipping.

Perhaps that’s enough to test out whether or not it’s an improvement on the other stones that I have.

I have an 8” black stone. I’ve had it for years. I’ve been sharpening knives for 36yrs, and I know of no better finishing stone to put a super sharp keen edge on a good knife blade.

I have black Novaculite Arkansas, Translucent Arkansas and hard Arkansas whetstones. If you have a steady hand IMO any of them are plenty fine enough to put a final polished razor edge on a blade (some people like to go up into the high thousands of grit size). I can’t really tell the difference between the black and Translucent, the hard is a little more coarse and will remove metal a little faster but it will still put on a nice fine edge that will be good for most uses, steels.

There are many different grades of Arkansas stones though, the real black and translucent are becoming rare and are not cheap even for the small ones.

Here is a place that sells real ones and has some good info about the different kinds of whetstones: http://www.danswhetstone.com/products.htm

Coarse and medium grit diamond stones are what I use the most, with the coarse I can get the chips and dings out or reprofile the edge very fast, then I move up in grit.

The stone I have is from the mid 70’s.

ILIKEFLASHLIGHTS: You probably have one of the really good ones, the best ones are 40+ years old from what I have seen. I can shave “beard” facial hair with 1095, s30v 154cm fresh off the black stone, scary sharp.