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They're very nice, both handles and chisels. I have a handful of somewhat rusty old Marples chisels I need to Marples chisels I need to tidy up a bit. Perhaps I'll make a couple of new handles for the ones that've been bashed in with a hammer.

Speaking of arks & Washitas, couple of nice things I found recently in a second hand tool shop... Completely pristine and flawless HB8: And this quirky little Washita-Idwal pairing, stuck firmly in their rather nice box. The stones are 3.5x1, and frankly I don't ever use things that small...

A few of the other wa styles I do occasionally and which also work well... 'D Shape'. This is mostly oval, with a kinda triangle on one side, so you make them for right or left handed users. This is an old nakiri I restored a bit and rehandled, saving the original blonde horn ferrule. This is a...

Some thoughts on 'wa' handles then if anyone's interested. Perhaps not desperately relevant in regards to making full tang, scaled, western handles, but fwiw... --- I largely make traditional Japanase octagonal handles because; they're comfortable, they're easy to make, and I like the way they...

Very interesting to read hear your thoughts on all this, as it's not something I know much about in terms of having actual practical experience. I know quite a few knifemakers so have spoken to them a bit, and I've HT-ed 1084 myself to make a knife, but not much else. I'm not brilliant at...

Nice work and very interesting thread D! And (unlike almost everything else on the forums) it's actually something I know a little bit about. For the last couple of years I've basically been making custom kitchen knife handles, as well as sharpening and restorations, for a living. The below are...

Yep certainly for some types of stone, or certain kinds of edge, I find that things can be better if a little bedded in. Though I mostly sharpen kitchen knives (largely from Hitachi paper steels), and for that quite aggressive cutting is better - you don't really want very refined edges. So if...

It isn't exactly an Idwal no (I've had quite a lot of them), though it could be slightly related... If my hunch was right - that it's from Wales - then a lot of the old types of whetstone there are found in a relatively small geographical area in northern Snowdonia. Though Idwals are a...

Yeah, it just kinda surprised me that they weren't using and recommending hard, fine jnats. Though perhaps it shouldn't... Japanese tool and knife makers/sharpeners obviously know what they're about, and can clearly recognise a good stone wherever it might be from! And perhaps also backs up...

Here's another one with the Red Mallee as the main part, brass spacer and horn ferrule.

It is indeed! It's a eucalypt and I think grows quite widely across Aus, Brown Mallee is very beautiful too. (I was living in Adelaide for a few years until recently). My favourite part of that handle though is the Western Myall, which was given to me by someone I knew there who told me to keep...

Both sides are lapped flat now, though I got it from someone else who shares the same niche interest in weird old whetstones. It may have been dished when he got it.

I think you're right - I'm pretty sure it's not serpentine, but funny you should say that about marble... People call this the 'Fiddich River Stone', but that's a name that's been given to it in the last ten years or so, and the reasoning is fairly tenuous I think. Based on a single line in an...

It's reasonably hard under a blade, but gets quite a thick, creamy slurry relatively easily with an atoma, which makes it feel softer in use. Perhaps 4.5 on a Japanese scale. It's fine - will finish a razor, and is a little quicker than many other comparable old stones. Not as fast as most...

This is a type of old UK whetstone about which there's basically no information. I was wondering if anybody here might know anything...? I think it's probably a shale.

They are weirdly quite popular in Japan... A friend of mine was living there for about 6 months where he got a part time job sharpening chisels and kanna, and they'd use translucents to finish apparently. Another guy I was doing some sharpening for had bought a hard ark from the same shop in...

Ta. (Good to know I wasn't misleading my friend when I said the same!)

Hello, I'm Oli. Most of my woodworking just involves handle making for kitchen knives. Here's a recent favourite; the main part of the handle is Western Myall, spacer is steel-Red Mallee burl-steel, ferrule is ebony.

They do indeed have some chert/novaculite whetstones in Japan, not many, but some. An example here, they call it 'orthoquartzite', but basically it's the same kind of affair: https://max6500a.wixsite.com/mysite --- David - when you said originally you were hoping that it might be a Washita...