The Washita Thread

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I think I might have scored a ruby red washita. In a ruby red painted box. Although the paint job isn't surviving the simple green much.

Before

PXL_20220209_230349829.jpg


After a few hours soak and some lapping

PXL_20220210_025647629.MP.jpg


PXL_20220210_025720739.jpg
 
stringer said:
I think I might have scored a ruby red washita. In a ruby red painted box. Although the paint job isn't surviving the simple green much.

Before

View attachment 164932

After a few hours soak and some lapping

View attachment 164935

View attachment 164936
Click to expand...

Another nice score! I've had a couple of stones that looked like that (one in fact is now in the possession of @KingShapton ) and they were toward the finer end of medium. So I don't think mine would've been Rosy Red type stones. But you never know - I've certainly never had or used anything that's known to be a RR, so I don't really have anything to compare to.

Your box though doesn't have the typical Pike/Norton joinery, so I'd guess has been made by someone who owned it previously.

Looks a big size too :). With the break down at the end so you could always just lap it even and still have a nice size stone plus a Washita 'rubbing stone'... make some sparks!
 
cotedupy said:
Another nice score! I've had a couple of stones that looked like that (one in fact is now in the possession of @KingShapton ) and they were toward the finer end of medium. So I don't think mine would've been Rosy Red type stones. But you never know - I've certainly never had or used anything that's known to be a RR, so I don't really have anything to compare to.

Your box though doesn't have the typical Pike/Norton joinery, so I'd guess has been made by someone who owned it previously.

Looks a big size too :). With the break down at the end so you could always just lap it even and still have a nice size stone plus a Washita 'rubbing stone'... make some sparks!
Click to expand...

I think someone put it in this box after it was broken. It's in their tight. I'll probably liberate it. But so far 36 hours in simple green and it hasn't budged. Usually the wood swells and breaks after that much time. I don't know if it's a ruby red or not. But it's definitely a red washita. I think someone painted that box red so they could identify it as the red one. It's very cool to see all the different strategies that old time woodworkers put into constructing their oil stone boxes. You really get a feeling for their personality sometimes. The ghost in the machine.
 
I think they were supposed to be the fastest.
If the stone is dirty it will be pretty hard to see the red.
I do wonder about them all coming from the same mine as some have claimed.

I think this later stone would have probably been graded as a Rosy Red if mined at an earlier date.
 
stringer said:
I think someone painted that box red so they could identify it as the red one.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting thought... could well be.

As DR said - they were supposedly like a particularly fast and coarse version of a LW, so they were white, but with a kinda pink/orange blush to parts of them (much like his picture above). Also had very low SGs, like 2 - 2.1. Whatever way - your new stone looks a good un to my eye :).

To confuse matters - there was also a 'Red Washita' which are the only labelled No.2 Grades I've ever seen. I don't exactly know why they called them that, but perhaps they had some of the coloured banding that Griswold calls Calico stones (?). I also don't know if the Red Washita Label existed in the US, the only ones I've seen come up were in the UK.

(Your stone looks far too homogenous to be a No.2 I'd have thought. Just an interesting fact for you!)
 
Here's a picture of the old stone that had loads of pink dots under the microscope - I just pulled it out of degreaser to have a look. That kind of light orange-y colouring to some of the stone is what I assume is what Rosy Reds had. Very like @Desert Rat 's above.

(Not the darker brown colouring obviously - that's just where there's still oil in the stone).

IMG-5239.jpg
 
So here’s a thing... soaking a Hindostan.

Hindos are not a million miles away from Dalmores. And I tried soaking my Dalmore recently which made it softer and quicker, and rather good. So a few evenings back I tried soaking Hindo. Except I forgot about it until today...

The effect is largely the same as soaking a Dalmore, though the Hindo still feels a bit nicer. When I was trying it, I thought it almost remided me of an Aoto. So I got out an old Tanaka Blue Aoto and had a look at comparing the polish:

7E3D5F88-2C70-4045-8386-6A38D7251C84.jpeg


Aoto:

05B288C4-06E5-47CF-892C-EBBE2EE456D8.jpeg


Hindo:

442E1569-8824-4F90-8D81-CF09CFC8B584.jpeg


The scratch pattern is quite similar, though perhaps the Hindo is slightly less aggressive. The biggest difference is that the Hindo has much darker cladding and more contrast. Which I though was pretty neat.

(I don’t think repeated soaking and drying would be great for a layered sandstone like a Hindostan TBH. But permasoaking hasn’t done it any damage it seems. Maybe I’ll leave one in the bucket!)
 
Desert Rat said:
Nice stones!
I think the majority of vintage Washita's were white. Even the rosy red was mostly white so what we are seeing is old oil in the stone.
Dirty stone.

Over night in Simple Green.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2m1fFg1]
A couple of weeks in Simple Green.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2m5fG6h]
Click to expand...
I have stored this stone in a sealed container of simple green since that photo was taken and forgotten about it until recently. I don't know how long it will take but eventually all traces of old oil might be removed.

I kind of suspect that the old red oil that was in the stone was automatic transmission fluid.

I can understand why the stone is so worn and dished. It's a very capable Washita, not sure if it's worth all the trouble to flatten it but I probably will at some point.
https://flic.kr/p/
 
Desert Rat said:
I have stored this stone in a sealed container of simple green since that photo was taken and forgotten about it until recently. I don't know how long it will take but eventually all traces of old oil might be removed.

I kind of suspect that the old red oil that was in the stone was automatic transmission fluid.

I can understand why the stone is so worn and dished. It's a very capable Washita, not sure if it's worth all the trouble to flatten it but I probably will at some point.
https://flic.kr/p/
Click to expand...

I think you might be right about the transmission fluid. It's been soaking for several days now and it's gradually getting lighter and definitely no more red that my colorblind eyes can detect. But when I first put it in there the damn thing was bleeding from it's pores. It was something else.

It's interesting. I liberated it. The side that was in the box is badly dished. Somebody used it hard for years. Then it broke. They chiseled a wood box to match the curvature of the dished stone and fit it precisely. One of the cleanest tightest fits I have seen. Enough that I was sure they had repaired it with glue. But when I split the box with a swift blow from my trusty chisel, it turned out that the only thing holding it together was the pressure fit.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it now. I probably won't fix the dish. Seems like too much work. I think I will super glue the crack. Lap it nice. And then mount the dished side onto epoxy. Unless anyone had a better suggestion. I think it is going to be among the fastest of my washitas so far. My white one is quick but not as fast as this one. And that ancient butterscotch one is actually pretty hard and non-friable. More hard ark-like.

Here you can see they carved the box to match the dish to hold the cracked whetstone snug.

PXL_20220211_022001286~2.jpg


PXL_20220211_022029981.jpg


PXL_20220210_231312131.jpg

There's still a red dot of the transmission fluid or whatever the hell that is, but it's cleaning up nice

PXL_20220211_205350266.jpg
 
cotedupy said:
That's an interesting thought... could well be.

As DR said - they were supposedly like a particularly fast and coarse version of a LW, so they were white, but with a kinda pink/orange blush to parts of them (much like his picture above). Also had very low SGs, like 2 - 2.1. Whatever way - your new stone looks a good un to my eye :).

To confuse matters - there was also a 'Red Washita' which are the only labelled No.2 Grades I've ever seen. I don't exactly know why they called them that, but perhaps they had some of the coloured banding that Griswold calls Calico stones (?). I also don't know if the Red Washita Label existed in the US, the only ones I've seen come up were in the UK.

(Your stone looks far too homogenous to be a No.2 I'd have thought. Just an interesting fact for you!)
Click to expand...
To add to this the Woodworkers Delight was either a Rosy Red or Lilly White, so top of the line.

Some information from "Woodworkers Tools" catalog of 1897 by Charles A Strelinger & Co.

The first grade (which is the choicest selection) is usually given a fancy name, such as “Lily White,” “Rosy Red,” “Red Label,” etc. The second grade is called “Extra Washita.” The third “No. 1 Washita,” and the fourth “No. 2 Washita.” Of course the poorer grades predominate, and it is safe to estimate that eight-tenths of the Washita oil stones sold are of the third and fourth grades, and as only a limited percentage of the first grade are absolutely first- class, it is easy to understand why there are so many poor Washita oil stones, and so few good ones.

Wood Workers' Tools : Being a Catalogue of Tools, Supplies, Machinery, and Similar Goods : Charles A. Strelinger & Co. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Just editing to add that the grading system might well have changed through the years, I haven't really looked into it.
 
stringer said:
I think you might be right about the transmission fluid. It's been soaking for several days now and it's gradually getting lighter and definitely no more red that my colorblind eyes can detect. But when I first put it in there the damn thing was bleeding from it's pores. It was something else.

It's interesting. I liberated it. The side that was in the box is badly dished. Somebody used it hard for years. Then it broke. They chiseled a wood box to match the curvature of the dished stone and fit it precisely. One of the cleanest tightest fits I have seen. Enough that I was sure they had repaired it with glue. But when I split the box with a swift blow from my trusty chisel, it turned out that the only thing holding it together was the pressure fit.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it now. I probably won't fix the dish. Seems like too much work. I think I will super glue the crack. Lap it nice. And then mount the dished side onto epoxy. Unless anyone had a better suggestion. I think it is going to be among the fastest of my washitas so far. My white one is quick but not as fast as this one. And that ancient butterscotch one is actually pretty hard and non-friable. More hard ark-like.

Here you can see they carved the box to match the dish to hold the cracked whetstone snug.

View attachment 165168

View attachment 165169

View attachment 165170
There's still a red dot of the transmission fluid or whatever the hell that is, but it's cleaning up nice

View attachment 165173
Click to expand...
Pretty nice fit he had there. Maybe Mohogany I'm not sure. Your right about getting a feel for the craftsman that made some of these boxes and I believe many handcrafted items. Some of that stuff has soul, not being able to find a better word to describe it.
 
Some more from the Charles Stelinger catalog.

"There are various grades of Washita rock. The best whet-stones are very porous and uniform in texture. The poor grades are less porous, making them vitreous, or “glassy,” or they may have hard spots or sand holes"

So the more porous stones and probably faster seems to have been the highest grades. I'm not so sure I don't like the more vitreous stones more though.

I just came across this catalog today so this is all new information to me.
 
Desert Rat said:
Some more from the Charles Stelinger catalog.

"There are various grades of Washita rock. The best whet-stones are very porous and uniform in texture. The poor grades are less porous, making them vitreous, or “glassy,” or they may have hard spots or sand holes"

So the more porous stones and probably faster seems to have been the highest grades. I'm not so sure I don't like the more vitreous stones more though.

I just came across this catalog today so this is all new information to me.
Click to expand...

Back in the day they probably had a lot of choices for slow, fine stones. They must have really prized the quick cutting coarse ones because there wasn't a whole lot of other reliable options before synthetics hit the scene.
 
Desert Rat said:
Some more from the Charles Stelinger catalog.

"There are various grades of Washita rock. The best whet-stones are very porous and uniform in texture. The poor grades are less porous, making them vitreous, or “glassy,” or they may have hard spots or sand holes"

So the more porous stones and probably faster seems to have been the highest grades. I'm not so sure I don't like the more vitreous stones more though.

I just came across this catalog today so this is all new information to me.
Click to expand...

This is an interesting catalogue, cheers for posting! I haven't read through it all yet but one thing immediately jumped out at me:

'The SOFT ARKANSAS OIL STONE might, perhaps, better be called Hard Washita, as it really par- takes more of the Washita than of the Arkansas nature. It cuts faster than the regular Arkansas, but not so fast as the Washita, leaves an edge not so fine as the Arkansas, but somewhat finer than the Washita; in price it is between the two.'

So while Griswold in 1890 does not appear to have a category for Soft Arkansas, it clearly was a thing seven years later. As well as being noted that it is more like a type of Washita than an Arkansas.

---

There's certainly quite a lot in Griswold that talks about the best Washita stones being the most porous, as well as that table I posted above he says stuff like this quite often:

'the more porous stones are the scarcer ones and the best stones for general use.'

'Thus, for carpenters' or mechanics' ordinary use, where it is not necessary to apply a pointed instrument to the stone, the most porous one is the best because it will abrade fastest.'
 
deltaplex said:
Does the hindo slurry more after the soaking? The one's I've used don't really self slurry much a a splash and go.
Click to expand...

It does a little more, though still not massively. I used an atoma slurry for the polish, and then sharpened clean.
 
stringer said:
I think you might be right about the transmission fluid. It's been soaking for several days now and it's gradually getting lighter and definitely no more red that my colorblind eyes can detect. But when I first put it in there the damn thing was bleeding from it's pores. It was something else.

It's interesting. I liberated it. The side that was in the box is badly dished. Somebody used it hard for years. Then it broke. They chiseled a wood box to match the curvature of the dished stone and fit it precisely. One of the cleanest tightest fits I have seen. Enough that I was sure they had repaired it with glue. But when I split the box with a swift blow from my trusty chisel, it turned out that the only thing holding it together was the pressure fit.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it now. I probably won't fix the dish. Seems like too much work. I think I will super glue the crack. Lap it nice. And then mount the dished side onto epoxy. Unless anyone had a better suggestion. I think it is going to be among the fastest of my washitas so far. My white one is quick but not as fast as this one. And that ancient butterscotch one is actually pretty hard and non-friable. More hard ark-like.

Here you can see they carved the box to match the dish to hold the cracked whetstone snug.

View attachment 165168

View attachment 165169

View attachment 165170
There's still a red dot of the transmission fluid or whatever the hell that is, but it's cleaning up nice

View attachment 165173
Click to expand...

Yeah if the break’s clean enough it might be worth glue-ing back together. You’d obviously want a completely total degrease first cos glue generally doesn’t like oil.

I’d leave the dishing personally. Almost all my old novaculites are dished / unusable on one side. Far more trouble than it’s worth, as long as one side’s flat.
 
bsfsu said:
I just received this in the post
View attachment 165621View attachment 165622View attachment 165623

Then I did some cleaning
View attachment 165624View attachment 165625

I finally got a Washita! So now my question is cleaning....

Everyone talks about simple green but do I dilute it? Or just straight like tequila should be drunk? (No salt/lime)
Click to expand...
What I do is alternate dunking in straight simple green and clean water. Maybe start with 24 hours of each and see what happens.
 
I did decide to glue that broken washita. After several days of alternating soaking in simple green and plain water I gave the stone one final scrub. Then to try and get as much surface dust and grease off as I could, I did a final bath and scrub with rubbing alcohol. I super glued the crack with the gel super glue. After a few minutes I put the stone face down. Built a tape moat and flooded it with clear epoxy. The epoxy is still curing. But it looks pretty successful. I will have to do some more filling and lapping to get the crack smooth.

PXL_20220213_194938461.jpg

This is by far the least uniform washita I have.
PXL_20220213_194952102.MP.jpg


PXL_20220213_195513139.jpg

PXL_20220213_200351733.MP.jpg


PXL_20220214_031324765.jpg

PXL_20220214_031519595.jpg
 
bsfsu said:
I just received this in the post
View attachment 165621View attachment 165622View attachment 165623

Then I did some cleaning
View attachment 165624View attachment 165625

I finally got a Washita! So now my question is cleaning....

Everyone talks about simple green but do I dilute it? Or just straight like tequila should be drunk? (No salt/lime)
Click to expand...

Oooh... Pike LW. Very swish, congrats!

The stone itself you can just soak in any degreaser. SG works well, though stronger stuff is better. Undiluted. Then just put it in some water for a bit after.

Much as I hate to sound like a wanky stone collector, but the thing you really need to pay attention to is that label... I would clean further round the inside walls of the box using SG on a sponge or rag, but don't touch the label itself any more than you have to. Then when you've got the sides all clean, and any areas of the bottom that you can without damaging the label - seal it. Clear nail varnish, or wood varnish, just to make sure it's not gonna get beaten up or go anywhere.

Enjoy! It'll be an amazing stone :).
 
stringer said:
I did decide to glue that broken washita. After several days of alternating soaking in simple green and plain water I gave the stone one final scrub. Then to try and get as much surface dust and grease off as I could, I did a final bath and scrub with rubbing alcohol. I super glued the crack with the gel super glue. After a few minutes I put the stone face down. Built a tape moat and flooded it with clear epoxy. The epoxy is still curing. But it looks pretty successful. I will have to do some more filling and lapping to get the crack smooth.

View attachment 165666
This is by far the least uniform washita I have.
View attachment 165667

View attachment 165668
View attachment 165669

View attachment 165670
View attachment 165671
Click to expand...
Hmm, with the piece glued on, the stone looks odd, not great.

Better do yourself a favor and break off the glued piece. And so that you can't come up with such stupid ideas again, I'll write you my address and you'll send me the small piece to be on the safe side.

And just to please you, I'll use the little piece of Washita as a pocket whetstone....no problem for me, I'm happy to help....I'm known for my selflessness....and my sense of humor:cool:
 
KingShapton, I like them broken stones too. Like you said great for small knifes but also larger tools where I take the stone to the edge. Machete's, draw knifes, axes ect.
I think I paid ten or fifteen bucks for this one that is just the right size to fit in my hand. It didn't have the matching half or I would have probably done like Stringer and put them back together.

 
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