Posts: 3,258
Threads: 0
Joined: Aug 2006
Natural Arkansas stones are not classified by grit but by density. There is some good info at danswhetstone.com Norton suggests that a soft ark falls out somewhere around a 600 grit water stone. I keep a soft ark in the kitchen, seems fine for general kitchen knives.
Jonathan
I only regret the tools I didn't buy!
“Think about it: Everything with a power cord eventually winds up in the trash.” John Sarge
Posts: 10,118
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2006
Location: South Alabama
Soft is a sort of medium grit, more or less. Like has been said above, these stones aren't graded by grit, so it's hard to figure out from the labels how they would compare to stones of other kinds.
Back in the day, a soft Arkansas stone might have been used between the grindstone and the hard stone or strop. I use mine between a coarse diamond stone and a strop. You can raise a burr with it, but it takes a while, especially with the harder steels.
Steve S.
------------------------------------------------------
Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
- T. S. Eliot
Tutorials and Build-Alongs at
The Literary Workshop
Posts: 10,678
Threads: 1
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Orlando, Florida
The real test is just to use the stone and judge how it compares to stones you already use. Not all Arkansas stones are created equal. There can be very wide variations between two different stones marketed as the same. That's just what you get with natural stones. Woodcraft still sells soft Arkansas stones, but now they are "Pinnacle" branded. I'm guessing they probably just changed the name on the box. The Pinnacle soft Arky got pretty good reviews on the Woodcraft website.
Still Learning,
Allan Hill
Posts: 1,043
Threads: 0
Joined: Aug 2012
Location: In da U.P. of Michigan
I bought one of these stones from Woodcraft in the early 1990's. I still use it for straightening out the edge on my hunting knives before doing the final honing on a hard Arkansas stone. As the other guys said, it is a medium grit and takes off material quickly.