Thread: Nakayama Asagi owners please respond

Originally Posted by kevint

.... but then if you run the razor over a clean dry stone as I just did; it does feel like glass.

I was going to say, the 3 Asagis I've held now all feel like glass. They even reflect light like a mirror representing color of objects and everything when you tilt the Asagi at an angle.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

I was going to say, the 3 Asagis I've held now all feel like glass. They even reflect light like a mirror representing color of objects and everything when you tilt the Asagi at an angle.

Chris L

with water and esp. slurry it does not feel like glass at all. Ha, not that i have thought much about comparing the feel of other hones wet to dry.
could be universal.

I had been doing well keeping Yama-san out of mind. I'm sitting on a couple pics and descripts. of two budget busters to choose from.... you know the feeling

IIRC, when I bought the first Asagi I returned I think all told it was like $230 including shipping. I guess it depends on the budget. It DID bust my razor budget for awhile, that's true.

I must work with these Asagis more. Last night's experiment wasn't stellar. I honed an already shaving sharp (but in need of a touch up) DD Dwarf on the rectangular Asagi pictured. I used slurry raised with my 1200 DMT D8E for about 100 passes then rinsed off the stone well and honed 100 passes with plain water. Stropped and test shaved this morning. I'm a big proponent of the HHT and even the varying degrees of HHT to indicate varying degrees of sharpness. Both the HHT and the shave this AM showed the razor needed more work. I think I'm done with the slurry on this stone and this particular razor. I'm going to hone like the dickens with water only on that razor this weekend and try again. If it takes hundreds and hundreds of passes like Old School does......I'm going to sit down privately and have a talk with these two stones and see what kind of resolution we can come up with.

I will say that I can already see both stones are/would be superior natural polishing stones and my abilities or familiarity with the stones are what are lacking. The frosted look of the bevels created with slurry quite quickly turns into mirror bevels when honing with water. This also leads me to believe the DD may need a bit of touch up on a lower grit (8k maybe) prior to hitting the Asagi again.

Chris L

The obvious solution is to rent that saw again, cut each stone into 4 hones and 4 slurry stones, and sell them for $150 each. That way you can keep one of each and still make a profit!

lol

Un lol. hundreds of strokes? hmm hard to communicate with a no count. How long does it take?

On this cracker the strokes are only 4, 4.5 inch long

i should find my spyglass and see what i got rather than feeling it out.

Originally Posted by Utopian

The obvious solution is to rent that saw again, cut each stone into 4 hones and 4 slurry stones, and sell them for $150 each. That way you can keep one of each and still make a profit!

The rectangular Asagi would make two great narrow Asagi hones. I think it would be too hard for me to cut into it though. Not the stone being too hard, but the idea of it.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

I'm a big proponent of the HHT and even the varying degrees of HHT to indicate varying degrees of sharpness. Both the HHT and the shave this AM showed the razor needed more work.

I think hair tests on Nakayamas can be deceiving. With a given razor, I usually get more impressive arm-hair felling after a coticule with plain water than after a Nakayama plain water, but the shaves are almost always better after the Nakayama.

Originally Posted by SteveS

I think hair tests on Nakayamas can be deceiving. With a given razor, I usually get more impressive arm-hair felling after a coticule with plain water than after a Nakayama plain water, but the shaves are almost always better after the Nakayama.

The proof of the pudding is in eating it
I can get a perfect HHT after the 8K.
If I then finish on the coticule, the HHT fails miserably. But the shave off the coticule is better than off the 8K. So what did the HHT prove?

Originally Posted by Bruno

The proof of the pudding is in eating it
I can get a perfect HHT after the 8K.
If I then finish on the coticule, the HHT fails miserably. But the shave off the coticule is better than off the 8K. So what did the HHT prove?

Amen.

I get perfect HHTs after setting the bevel on my DMT 1200.

I used to get reliable HHTs when I used the Norton 1/4K (told me I was ready to move on to fine naturals) and diamond pastes afterward (told me it was time for a test shave).

The HHT seemed to be at its heyday when most of us were doing Norton pyramids. Less so now that many of us use artificial media at low grits only, then move on to natural stones for polishing. I don't think I'm imagining this, or that it's a coincidence. The HHT seems to reward a toothy edge...

These days the HHT tells me one thing: that the last stone or honing medium I used was probably artificial. This can be useful if I suddenly forget what the hell I've been doing. Beyond that...

Sorry,

Chris, I was wondering what you found out. were you able to discern differences between the two, or come up with a best use strategy?