Thread: Nakayama Asagi owners please respond

Originally Posted by Chris L

Bart, that's what has always puzzled me about the Japanese Naturals the seem to be recommended honing with slurry. These would also be for the polishing stones that would produce wickedly sharp edges.

Yes, but what knife enthusiasts and woodworking geeks call wicked sharp, doesn't compare to the ultimate shaving edges we're after.
When I hone kitchen cutlery on a coticule, I don't even think about not raising a slurry. And everyone agrees that these knifes carry the most wicked edges ever.

We have become so used to performing HHTs that we don't amaze ourselves over that anymore. Popping hairs isn't good enough. No, they need to fall silently instead. When I'm talking about finishing on slurry with my Nakayama or not, I'm talking about the difference between popping a hanging hair and felling it silently. I don't think many knife honers deal with that.

Best regards,
Bart.

Chris - I dilute the slurry with water as it starts to "muddy up". It is such a fast cutter that I don't really need to spend so long on it that the water dries out too much though.

This may be wrong, but the impression I got from So is that Asagi is just a name for the colour? The lighter coloured stones, Asagi and Kiita (yellow?), are more favoured/higher priced, because they allow you to see the metal removal and therefore allow more precise honing? I may be wrong about that.

James.

Mine is a Maruichi Maruka.
I think it is also an asagi stone.

Nakayama is the mine
Maruichi specifies grit / fineness
Maruka is like a stamp of quality approval, but ones without it are not necessarily worse
Asagi talks about color / type of clay matrix (I think)

Then there is also the stratum from which it was mined, but I don't know which that would be.

Good to see the asagi alliance is larger than I knew. I bet we can all agree tha Yamasheeta has some reeally cool nakayama asagi. Chris, as with any and all nats in my possession I have used them every way I know. Which even includes a little dry work.

Bruno unless I am wrong the strata is asagi- just trying to act humble I'm not wrong but something else funny; my N-A has about the same dimensions as a graham cracker

`I was trying to keep all my juice in a plastic container until i left it on the kitchen counter 1 too many days.

As for using this slurry juice from diamond nagura
I have finger squeegeed as much as i can get from the Dplate onto the stone.
to be clear the ending dry paste is not a even covering glazing the stone; for me it ends up something you have to chase around, disappearing really until its nearest dry honing, a few strokes and you should have a fairly nice shaving edge. improved by the strop yes but very very shavable as is.

problems are , although difficult to do but dry slurry has aided me in cutting the stone a little.(maybe that was with a knife but still) I think it's easy to loose confidence in as the crud piles up wave like and deposits on the edge. ..Maybe that is the slurry conundrum's answer- razors are too low angle; allowing the swarf free ride over the edge. eventually (possibly)degrading the ultimate keeness.

Such seems to happen but ultimately i think slurry paste masks or aides in making a minor mistake or two - as if the feedback is telling you the surface is a little lower sometimes. I tend toward a subttle gougeyness //

in clear water you can see and feel everything and make fewer mistakes. Sitting here now I find it hard to discern which is sharper.

The best I think is the second or maybe even 3rd use (when it works out that way) retouching the just honed edge cause you think it can be a lil keener for instance. I think we can say these NA give up very little slurry on their own with our razor level of edge pressure especially. I think honing creates a little finer surface - not glazed but on the way to that end if it were never fully refreshed.
Typing all that I can see Bruno's washing style to be an efficient systematic approach. being non systematic is my disease. I think one should try every way known as many times as it takes to decide; then go back to it much later to see if we learned anything.

I know this is the finest grit stone I have Let's guess it's 20k what if i tweaked the paste down to 30? At some point my human error is going to creep into that mix because there is no edge anymore there is just an imaginary line where uncut things become cut when that line is crossed. ( i exaggerate because asagi might be 40k)

One thing that was discussed - the difference of tool edges. you have to remember one of the most essential differences between Japanese woodwork and typical western equivilents is the material. In the west we mostly use hardwood. In Japan it is mostly softwood so their edges must be much sharper. The whole aesthetic of shiny clean unfinished wood interiors is really all about shaving. Shaving wood yes, but .5-.3 micron edges polished beyond 20,000 grit is not so uncommon in traditional work. the difference with razors is the mass behind the edge and the angle. A sharp plane edge is or can or should be razor size.


The leftover paste in a cup I was saving to put on a strop.

I'll be frank with you guys - I save up using the Asagi until I need to refresh at least 5 razors at a time lately. That was not the case when I first got it. I too worry about wasting the stone by using the diamond plate to generate slurry, but it is such a hard stone that very little of it is removed at any one time. Plus, very little slurry is needed - my slurry is very diluted, generally. It would be a different story if we were sharpening chisels or knives or whatever, but razors just don't need or use that much of the stone - we are polishing an edge that is often only a mm or so wide.

A couple of very light forward and backward strokes of the diamond plate is all I use, and that services several razors at a time.

I laughed out loud when I read that you saved the juice in a container Kevin - mainly because I have thought of doing that several times myself

James.

I worry about waste as well. With this stone I understand at least some points of those who like super smooth hones as this one only gets touched with 1200 atoma.

What have you guys heard about grit potential?

The feel of the stone which I really like doesn't quite match my expectation of 30k. It doesn't feel glassy and it cuts quite well.

Here's one:


And the uttha:



Testing begins. Actually it began tonight on stone #1 with a DD Dwarf spike point. We'll see what happens tomorrow with the shave.

Chris L

Aha!! I know those stones


James.

OLD_SCHOOL, didn't you say mine had a little asagi in it? Hell. just give me the name of my stone again and I'll right it down and tack it to the wall so I don't forget again!

Originally Posted by JMS

OLD_SCHOOL, didn't you say mine had a little asagi in it? Hell. just give me the name of my stone again and I'll right it down and tack it to the wall so I don't forget again!

Better hurry up. next week you'll probably have to left it down.