Dan’s Whetstone Company

When I stumbled across Ian W’s review, I got excited in a way that only a nerdy oboist can get excited. You see, oboists make their own reeds, and we make them using very sharp knives. To keep those suckers sharp, we use all kinds of fancy stones, ceramic rods, sharpening steels, etc. It suddenly occurred to me, that the Arkansas stones that we buy (at a huge markup) from oboe supply dealers are from ARKANSAS!!! Yep, that’s why they gave me a doctorate.
I checked out Dan’s website to see what they had. They had a very useful section explaining the hardness of the different stones they offered. When I saw that they had mounted hard Arkansas stones on sale, I had to place an order just to check it out. My stones arrived in less than a week with instructions and a small bottle of honing oil. This bamboo-​tooting nerd was soooo happy…

On one of my roadtrips, we made a detour to the Hot Springs area because my Dad who collects knives wanted to see if he could pick up some Arkansas whetstones (great for knife sharpening) for himself and his friends. He recently visited Dan’s Whetstone website (
), but wanted to visit the business in person to see if he could get larger whetstones than what’s sold to the public to sharpen his larger knives.
At the time, two addresses popped up on the Internet, one in Hot Springs and another address in Pearcy. We went to the Hot Springs address first which accepts deliveries, and there was a sign on the door with the Pearcy address. Since I knew where I was going I headed west on Hwy 70 and banged a left up a narrow gravel road (Hilltop Road) about a mile to Dan’s Whetstone on the right side, a warehouse building.
We walked inside the building and the warehouse was filled with lots of whetstones. We were greeted by an employee who went back and got Danny the owner to help my Dad out. My Dad brought a couple knives with him to test out on several sizes and types of whetstones (coarse to fine). Danny was friendly and very knowledgeable and answered my Dad’s questions. Some of the whetstones were imperfect with minor blemishes, so significant discounts were given off the list price. My Dad is very happy with the whetstones he uses to sharpen his knife collection.
NEW ADDRESS: 418 Hilltop Rd, Pearcy, AR 71 964