u/ApplesArePeopleToo

An update on the four old oilstones I posted about the other day. I soaked the two worst in kerosene for two days, then in Simple Green for a few hours. The two better ones got two days in Simple Green.

The Norton HB8 black translucent Arkansas and the Salmen’s Yellow Lake slate (probably) came up really nicely, but they were in great condition to start with.

The two filthy ones I’d sorta resigned myself that they might be junk, particularly the dark one in the box. I figured it would turn out to be an India stone.

Well, I got lucky!

The suspected India stone turned out to have been glued into its wooden base with what looks like Liquid Nails. I had to break the base to get it off.

When I did, under the grime and glue, I spotted a label that read “Pike Lily White Washita”! Yeehaw!

As carefully as I could, I scraped the glue and gunk off with a razor blade (photos 2 and 3). I soaked it for a little bit in Simple Green, but I was worried about the label getting damaged, so I settled on just lapping the top and sides to clean it up. It still needs a bit more lapping, but you can see in the photos it turned out pretty nice, albeit nowhere near ‘lily white’ any more.

The other mystery stone has turned out to be a lovely-looking grey-green Turkey stone.

First photo left to right: Washita, Arkansas, slate, Turkey stone.

I wanted to try some natural stones, but didn’t want to spend Dans or jnats money. So to dip my toe in the water, I snagged this batch of old oilstones labelled as naturals from a chap on Facebook marketplace.

I only know what two of them are. On the far left is a Norton hard Arkansas in really good nick - I’m really happy with this one! Centre right next to its blue box is a Salmen’s UK-made stone, which after a bit of research I think is a Yellow Lake slate. Also in good nick and a bit of a win, I think.

The other two don’t have any labels to help me. The centre left pale one could be a light Turkish stone, a Washita, or something else. The one on the far right, I’m leaning towards a Turkish stone, as I’m in Australia and they were quite common here. But it’s so filthy it could be anything under all that grime. I can’t even get it out of its box, it’s so caked up with old oil and dirt.

I’m going to give them a good soak in Simple Green for a day or two to remove the gunk so I can get a good look at them. If nothing else, it should stop them smelling like some ancient diesel engine!

I’ve been chasing ‘paper towel slicing sharp’ with my freehand sharpening for a while now, and tonight I finally got there! Not as well as I’d like, but definitely getting some slicing action going on in paper towels, not just tearing.

I started with one of my favourite knives that was already shaving/paper slicing sharp; a Damascus-clad VG10 kiritsuke that I made my own handle for from macadamia wood.

Because it was already reasonably sharp, I started on a boron 800 grit, then moved through a Chinese ruby 3000, King 6000, Shapton Kuromaku 8000, 2.5 micron diamond strop (rough-side cow leather), then 1 micron diamond strop (smooth side kangaroo leather). Yes, I know that’s a real mish-mash of stones.

I think my main stumbling block is that I’ve been hand sharpening at too steep an angle. To get this knife cutting paper towel more cleanly, I probably need to reprofile it at a lower angle.