Dans Arkansa stone sale

Ryan Mooney

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The Gorge Area, Oregon
These are really good stones (Dan's stones are widely regarded as some of the best Arkansas stones) and the prices here are quite excellent. I added the 8" translucent to my collection (how much it will vary from the black I already have I'm not sure.. but its was a good enough deal I could resist). The smaller stones would be a bit small for a lot of woodworking tools but the combo set would be all you ever needed for pocket (or kitchen) knives and could be pressed into service if need be for other purposes.

https://www.sierratradingpost.com/dans-whetstone~b~1631/
 
Dan's is actually a mining and stone dressing company:

https://www.danswhetstone.com/

The translucent is closer to $150 directly through them (so I'm guessing this was a surplus lot they had sold to some other retailer, possibly someone STP bought out and is dumping the inventory).
https://www.danswhetstone.com/product/bench-stones/

Frank, I'm surprised you haven't found a novaculite deposit and mined a few of your own, it would be tempting to poke around if I was down there (knowing specifically what to look for might be a bit of a trick).
 
Quick review. I took a handful of our kitchen knives that needed work and put them up against the translucent from Dan's, a black Arkansas I have from Halls, and the Spyderco fine.

Short version the Spyderco puts the best edge on. All were followed by 5-8 passes on a lightly loaded horse but strop, the Dan's and Spyderco both got me to shaving sharp with that methodology but the Spyderco got me there with less follow on stropping (by about 2x less stropping) and the shave was smoother indicating a finer edge. To be fair the Spyderco is well worn in and the Arkansas is known to be a bit brash starting out so I'm expecting the Dan's stone to improve over time. At this point in time it also seems like the translucent was cutting a bit faster, I expect that to change as the stone gets broken in some, but it seems like a pretty fast stone for as fine as it is.

Comparing to the Halls the translucent from Dan's beats the black hands down. Nominally the translucent and black are similar structure and capability but not in this case. Part of that is the stone treatment, the Halls stone felt rougher whereas the stone from Dan's has a more finely graded finish. Despite (or maybe because of) that the translucent from Dan's also cut quite a bit faster. I flipped the black so I was using the less broken in side for a fairer comparison so the cutting speed is the stone, not use.

Short version, I'd still recommend the Spyderco fine if you just want a fast all around stone that puts on a fantastic edge. I can go from a 400 grit diamond to the Spyderco (which is a pretty big jump) and still not have to spend an excess of time on things. The Dan's translucent is a lovely stone and should improve with use so I'll keep playing with it. There is no doubt that it beats the Spyderco on pretty and it does put on a better than average edge pretty quickly.

I'm leaving the water stones in the side for the moment... As they're a bit of a different beast.
 
Dan's is actually a mining and stone dressing company:

https://www.danswhetstone.com/

The translucent is closer to $150 directly through them (so I'm guessing this was a surplus lot they had sold to some other retailer, possibly someone STP bought out and is dumping the inventory).
https://www.danswhetstone.com/product/bench-stones/

Frank, I'm surprised you haven't found a novaculite deposit and mined a few of your own, it would be tempting to poke around if I was down there (knowing specifically what to look for might be a bit of a trick).

Ryan, the novaculite mines are in the Hot Springs area, about 200 miles southwest of me.
 
Ryan, the novaculite mines are in the Hot Springs area, about 200 miles southwest of me.

Hmm, I had thought it was more widely distributed, but yeah it appears that the main deposits are only in the Ouchita's (there are other novaculite mines apparently but not in the region). I did see some other Cherts and similar stone up closer to you when we were hiking around, it would be interesting to see how well some of those worked, I suspect they would cut really slowly but might be usable as a fine finishing hone.
 
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