Japanese Stone Powders

Just curious if anyone could provide me with any information on these products JAPANESE whetstone powder Iyo left from the 1st KANABAN - eBay (item 190202819276 end time Nov-24-08 21:57:12 PST)
and there use for honing straights. Whilst I am sure that the sellers English is at least a hundred times better than my Japanese, I still think that a lot of the detail has been lost in the translation.
Reading through the descriptions, I thought that the Suita powder would probably be the most useful for speeding up the cutting power of slow stones i.e the Chinese 12k.
The obvious answer is to bite the bullet and order some, and I will probably do that, but I would like to hear from anyone who might be able to further explain their application and associated benefits.
Kind regards,
Alex

The only issue is if the powder is softer or harder than your stone. If the powder is derived from a harder rock it will grind your stone off and soon the slurry will be mostly whatever your stone is made of. If its softer, well that's what you want.

The thing is, if you need a stone with that kind of cutting power, you're better off just buying a coticule.

The 12k is a great stone, making a slurry on it with a diamond hone is a wonderful trick to be able to use, but mixing grits is usually a bad idea.

You might be able to make this work, but it will likely be at the cost of decreased effectivenes in both the cutting and polishing arenas. (I've tried a coticule rubbing stone on the 12k, and it works, but isn't as good as using the two stones separately)

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

I've actually saved up a few small baggies of coticule powder from my own coticule lapping procedures. A baggie of coticule and a baggie of Belgian Blue powder. I haven't done anything with them other then form a paste to use with some pieces of hard felt to get the gunk out of the crannies of the stabilizer bars, etc.

I don't think I'd use the stone powder for honing because as we all know, ANY dust, hair, errant grit, etc on the stone's surface sucks. It would be hard to imagine that when the slurry was drying prior to becoming a powder that it remained absolutely pure. Yes, the really small debris isn't the same problem it is when using plain water, but I wouldn't want to chance it.

Chris L