Description
This Dan’s Black Arkansas stone 2x6x0.75″ has been shaped via “the Jarrod plate” (a special concave aluminum lapping plate, which can be used to produce convex whetstones, which in turn produce concave cutting edges) to have a convex ellipsoid surface upon one of the two 2×6″ factory planes.
You’ll receive the exact stone shown, and it was only used to produce the shape. It weighs 444 grams and the center maximum thickness is ~22mm, with the four corners ~20.5mm.
The special surface has an effective 25’Ø down the 6″ length, and a 6.5′ effective diameter across the 2″ width.
The labor to prepare such a surface is difficult and intense.
While I do not believe it will be possible for your whetstone to wear geometrically-speaking enough in your lifetime of home sharpening to need resurfacing in the geometric sense, it is unfortunately true that the center point of the stone will, in this opinion, become more polished than you will want for using the stone to finish the sharpening of straight razors. Thus, I would suggest one of two paths;
{PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use my Amazon links below to finalize a purchase, and it doesn’t have to be those items, you can use the links to initiate any buying session and if you make an order <30mins I’ll get a 1-2% commission, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t fighting for my retailer’s life!}
– purchase a “Norton prep stone” and make an “anti” form in that stone, by covering the surface of this finished whetstone with sandpaper and rubbing the little Norton prep stone on that paper, keeping its length aligned with the 6″ length of this stone, until such time that you carve in an ‘anti’ shaped concavity in to one side of your Norton prep stone.
– buy a Z-Lion small diamond sandpaper sheet, they’re inexpensive and one sheet will last likely your lifetime. Use it to make the whole surface of this stone look the same diffusion-wise. I personally don’t like my hard/black/trans/etc.-named Arkansas finishing stones to be any finer than 400 grit, and in fact I would argue I slightly prefer 200 grit, but both are acceptable to me depending upon the honing fluid you choose to employ (the thinner the fluid’s viscosity, the finer the stone polish and the less fluid you should use, with thicker fluids use more and a rougher stone surface)
