European settlers in the Ouachita region were the second people to mine the Arkansas Novaculite Formation. They valued it for a different reason. They found that novaculite could be used to sharpen metal tools and weapons. They soon began producing sharpening tools and trading them with distant partners.

Arkansas “whetstones,” “oil stones,” and “sharpening stones” became world-famous for their ability to produce a sharp edge on a metal blade. This created a demand for novaculite that was strong in the 1800s but declined as people used fewer blades that required resharpening. In the early 1900s, demand declined further as artificial abrasives and sharpening machines began to replace the sharpening stone. Although sharpening stones made with synthetic abrasives are cost-competitive with novaculite and perform well, a steady demand for novaculite still supports several producers of novaculite sharpening tools.

The Arkansas Novaculite Formation yields sharpening-grade stones in a range of textures. “Washita Stone” has the appearance of unglazed porcelain, a porosity of several percent and serves as a good stone for coarse sharpening. An extremely fine-grained material known as “Arkansas Stone” has almost no porosity and is an excellent tool for honing a razor-sharp blade. These stones are broken from the quarry with black-powder blasting, sawn to shape with a diamond saw, and then lapped to form a surface that is perfectly flat and smooth.