Sorry Halicon, I am not sure that you understand just what novaculite is.  Novaculite is a very fine quartze like material that is found on the surface of the earth onln in a very small area from central Arkansas into eastern Oklahoma, it is also found at below 3,000 in oil drill cores in west Texas..  A new Arkansas stone can be used with either oil or water, once oil is used water will not work.   India Stone® is a man made material that is made from aluminum oxide and is made to contain oil so it cannot be used with water.

Oil has nothing to do with the break down of particles, what oil does is float the particles of steel out of the surface of the stone, water does the same thing but less well.

Don,

Any good sewing machine oil will work, do not use olive oil or 3-in-1 oil as both will gum up and make the stone useless.

When I was opeerating Russell's Arkansas Olistones, Inc. in the come 1960s I had the Phillips oil company develop a fine oil just as I wanted.  After I bought 35,000 cans I could not tell it from the then Singer Sewing Machine Oil.,  today we are almost out.

Russell, yep you spotted a mistake of mine. I have never used an India stone and thought they basically were a coarser variety of an Arkansas that were mined further south. I have good knowledge about Novaculite though and just so that you know it exists in England and many other places too but generally as much finer stones.

I assumed that one understands what water or oil does on a stone which is help reveal fresh new abrasive particles. Oil does this better than water for stones with Novaculite and water yield to be honest inferior results which is what I believe I typed (that it aids in breaking down the particles, not that it breakes down the particles, same when working with a whetstone and water)