The Washita Thread
- Thread starter Desert Rat
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Lots of good info in this thread. It’s one of the reasons I joined. Here’s my small collection of washita stones. I’m still searching for the prized corse type with lots of range. My favorite is the small broken chunk. The second is way too fine for my purposes. The others are newer editions and are good stones but I’d really like something a little faster.
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Welcome and thanks for sharing.
Also, you may as well just accept right now that if you hang out here for any length of time, you're going to buy a Belgian Blue. Just ask all of us who have bought Belgian Blues.
I got this the other day. I think it's a Washita?
I have a sore elbow from flattening so it didn't get taken down much further than this.
I had a little sharpen on it and it seemed to be fairly hard. I'll flatten it fully and then have a proper go on it.
I'd bee keen to hear people's opinions on the stone type though.
I have a sore elbow from flattening so it didn't get taken down much further than this.
I had a little sharpen on it and it seemed to be fairly hard. I'll flatten it fully and then have a proper go on it.
I'd bee keen to hear people's opinions on the stone type though.
Yeah, Washita for sure. They can be a real pain to lap.
They are pretty hard though, so once you get it flat you shouldn't have to work too hard or often to keep it that way.
I should say, that one is super dished, so it would probably be quicker and easier to use SIC powder to get it mostly lapped, then use other methods for the last little bit and to dress the surface. You will mess up a lot of wet and dry paper or diamond plates taking big dents out of novaculite.
Looks like a washita to me; not matter what it's going to take forever to lap even one side of that flat. I echo the SiC powder advice, as low a grit as you can locate.
Came up nice and flat with my stone polisher. I think it took an hour all up. Cuts fast and sharpens nicely.
I gave the bottom a little flatten and made some stable feet for it.
Fairly happy with the find!
I gave the bottom a little flatten and made some stable feet for it.
Fairly happy with the find!
Nice!
Interesting one... the majority of the stone itself looks quite hard and fine, with some areas of softer, coarser stuff. This can be quite nice as overall it'll act to speed the stone up. I've had some slightly inconsistent stones like that which are/were excellent performers
.
What is this stone polisher of which you speak?
It's a stone polisher made from small ceramic squares glued onto a glass plate. It stays flat and cuts through any kind of stone fairly well. I picked it up for about $10, I think it's straight out of China.
Pretty amazing the variability of the stone over the range of it's deposit..
I wonder how novaculite in other areas would stack up... Of course we know of
Crete, but there is a deposit in west Texas that to my knowledge has never
been commercially exploited.
I wonder how novaculite in other areas would stack up... Of course we know of
Crete, but there is a deposit in west Texas that to my knowledge has never
been commercially exploited.
UK novaculite has been used forever.
There’s certainly a good amount of novaculite in the US and Canada. Canadian stones are cut and sold on a small scale today, ditto Japan.
And as David said - the original novaculites for which the term was coined were the Llyn Idwal and Charnley Forest stones. Both similar to hard or translucent Arkansas, which is typical of novaculites from elsewhere too.
IME - Washitas and the type of soft arkansas stone you sent me are more unique. No others I know are quite like them, though Turkish / Cretan might be the most comparable.
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And after cleaning up - a pretty cool box that a recent Washita came in. This is the first time I've seen the top of a box made from thick, hard leather stitched together so it can be used for stropping.
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If you get one of those Washitas that is glued hard into a box, and you want to free it from the box, how do you do that?
Try to wiggle out if you can but don't force it. A blow with a sharp thin chisel along the grain of the wood is your best bet. Then glue the box back together after you clean the stone if the box is worth keeping. It feels a lot worse to break a stone than break a box.
I too am very much of the same school as @stringer above...
If you can't get it out reasonably easily with heating / boiling water &c. then just break down one side of the box and you can glue it back together after. Works very nicely
.I was standing around in the garden of my folks' new house earlier today, catching some rays with my coticule, and noticed something interesting looking in the corner of my eye. Are you seeing what I'm seeing...?
This right here is pretty unmistakeably a large piece of green novaculite:
And unless there's some very local deposit that hasn't been documented, I'd be reasonably sure it's Welsh, i.e. something that we might now call 'Llyn Idwal' or 'Cambrian Green'. Unfortunately that rock is pretty set in the wall (atm), so just a couple of tiny chunks for now to flatten and have a look.
I'm actually pretty tempted to try to get that stone out of the wall somehow as these little pieces are exceptionally consistent and fine-grained. Probably in fact too fine for anyone to want as a whetstone back in the day, but it'd be utterly superb for razor honing.
This right here is pretty unmistakeably a large piece of green novaculite:
And unless there's some very local deposit that hasn't been documented, I'd be reasonably sure it's Welsh, i.e. something that we might now call 'Llyn Idwal' or 'Cambrian Green'. Unfortunately that rock is pretty set in the wall (atm
), so just a couple of tiny chunks for now to flatten and have a look.
I'm actually pretty tempted to try to get that stone out of the wall somehow as these little pieces are exceptionally consistent and fine-grained. Probably in fact too fine for anyone to want as a whetstone back in the day, but it'd be utterly superb for razor honing.
Now I know where your luck is coming from!I was standing around in the garden of my folks' new house earlier today, catching some rays with my coticule, and noticed something interesting looking in the corner of my eye. Are you seeing what I'm seeing...?
View attachment 203082
This right here is pretty unmistakeably a large piece of green novaculite:
View attachment 203086
And unless there's some very local deposit that hasn't been documented, I'd be reasonably sure it's Welsh, i.e. something that we might now call 'Llyn Idwal' or 'Cambrian Green'. Unfortunately that rock is pretty set in the wall (atm
View attachment 203085
View attachment 203084
I'm actually pretty tempted to try to get that stone out of the wall somehow as these little pieces are exceptionally consistent and fine-grained. Probably in fact too fine for anyone to want as a whetstone back in the day, but it'd be utterly superb for razor honing.
View attachment 203083
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Desert Rat
Senior Member
There is another green stone at about a 45deg angle above that one. Is it more of the same?I was standing around in the garden of my folks' new house earlier today, catching some rays with my coticule, and noticed something interesting looking in the corner of my eye. Are you seeing what I'm seeing...?
View attachment 203082
This right here is pretty unmistakeably a large piece of green novaculite:
View attachment 203086
And unless there's some very local deposit that hasn't been documented, I'd be reasonably sure it's Welsh, i.e. something that we might now call 'Llyn Idwal' or 'Cambrian Green'. Unfortunately that rock is pretty set in the wall (atm
View attachment 203085
View attachment 203084
I'm actually pretty tempted to try to get that stone out of the wall somehow as these little pieces are exceptionally consistent and fine-grained. Probably in fact too fine for anyone to want as a whetstone back in the day, but it'd be utterly superb for razor honing.
View attachment 203083
A rotary hammer with a masonry bit should loosen it right up depending on it's shape and the amount of mortar used, even a hammer and cold chisel.
Ha... I knew that one wouldn't pass you by! Yep that's another smaller piece, and there a couple of others I could see in that wall but out of shot.
The mortar is quite crumbly so I think I should be able to get it out with a hammer and chisel I think. Might have to find another bit of rock to fill the hole though, that piece is at least 8x5x5, possibly larger...
I've probably had getting on for 50 old Washitas and a couple of cheap and colourful Soft Arks that might perhaps have been called 'Calico Ouachitas' back in the day. But this is my very first, boxed and labelled, 'It's-not-a-real-Washita' Washita. And even though I know they're not meant to be particularly special, and Dan's are quite clear that it's not the same rock as the old P-N stones, I'm nevertheless quite excited to try it out. Because frankly; even if it's 'just' a low SG Soft Ark - that's still a pretty excellent stone in the grand scheme of things.
They actually very rarely cuts these Washitas; they're not part of the core range, and when a handful came on their website a few months ago they didn't stay around for long. So massive thanks to @Skylar303 who was super quick off the mark when I flagged them to him, and managed to grab one for each of us, to include with some stuff we were swapping.
The second pic shows the surface next to a NOS Lily White on the left, and even though both have that kind of chalky/pumice new stone finish to them you can quite clearly see the Dan's stone has a notably coarser, looser structure to it than the Norton. Will report back later how it compares...
They actually very rarely cuts these Washitas; they're not part of the core range, and when a handful came on their website a few months ago they didn't stay around for long. So massive thanks to @Skylar303 who was super quick off the mark when I flagged them to him, and managed to grab one for each of us, to include with some stuff we were swapping.
The second pic shows the surface next to a NOS Lily White on the left, and even though both have that kind of chalky/pumice new stone finish to them you can quite clearly see the Dan's stone has a notably coarser, looser structure to it than the Norton. Will report back later how it compares...
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I got one pretty similar to that too. It is very nice.
KingShapton
Senior Member
I'm really looking forward to your impressions and your comparison!
Desert Rat
Senior Member
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that Dan's. Really curious to know how friable and fast it might be.
I think really nice softs are pretty rare and probably the softer the stone the better.
My biggest issue with the softs is that too many of them become glazed and all but stop cutting quite quickly. Exactly why this is I have never been able to get my head around. My translucent hards seem to never really stop, same with the semi translucent. My blacks will all but come to a stop. For the most part the Washita's just keep on going. The surface of these other stones will of course become polished with enough time and slow down, just not to the same degree.
That's just been my experience and maybe others see it different?
Did you measure the SG before you oiled it up? Looks similar to one of those Smith's ones I bought.
