Thread: Do I Need Another Nakayama?

@riooso: I do not think you really need slurry on a Nakayama. The process of making slurry only wears the stone down IMHO. I use the Nakayama after the Y/G Escher. It takes me about 50 laps on the Nakayama to get the razor to where I want it. You can actually feel it when you are there. Intiatially there is quite some resistance when you move the razor across the hone, eventualy the razor glides over the hone. That's the moment of nirvana.

Originally Posted by Kees

@riooso: I do not think you really need slurry on a Nakayama. The process of making slurry only wears the stone down IMHO. I use the Nakayama after the Y/G Escher. It takes me about 50 laps on the Nakayama to get the razor to where I want it. You can actually feel it when you are there. Intiatially there is quite some resistance when you move the razor across the hone, eventualy the razor glides over the hone. That's the moment of nirvana.

With slurry one can hone a 1k, or even lower, edge to final finish fairly easily and fast. Making slurry can't wear the stone down as much as you might think. A synthetic stone used to to hone a few razors will last a life time, a stone as hard as Nakayama will last longer.
I wonder why would you go to Nakayama after Escher, my personal experience is they are interchangeable as finishers?

It may appear that this thread has been high-jacked but I will offer this. A lot of us live in such a vacuum concerning anything to do with straights that the only thing that can be offered are techniques and observations that work for each one of us, individually. I can't see and touch your stone let alone hone with it so it is difficult to know what is going on.

JimR's article was a tipping point for me concerning Japanese Naturals. I use my Ohira stone as the bedrock of my honing progression in tandem with different nagura stones to get to the finishing stages. I have shaved off the Ohira after using slurry, water only, then finally just dry and it was a very good shave but, I come from a 0.1micron film world so I was not totally satisfied. Big surprise there! I was looking for that final "finisher", the "coup de gras" as it were. I hooked with the Nakayama and after bringing the razor up through the progression tried it just wet. The shave was very good but, for me, the slightest bit harsh. So, thinking back to my Coticule and techniques and observations offered by Bart I used a "slurry" which tends to round the edge ever so slightly. I then went with water only to give the awesome diamond white brilliant bevel reflection that I am used to in using films. The shave is finally what I have been searching for, extremely smooth with an edge that is ever so slightly "forgiving". The only reason that I would purchase a new stone is to have one that is a little bigger than I have now but that is getting pretty greedy and with the price of J-Nats, greedy can kick your arse quickly.

So back to KingFish's question. You may already do this or may not need it. I use a magnifier, as suggested by a lot of guys, and follow the progression up the ladder. I don't move to the next step till I see the scratch pattern homogeneous along the entire bevel. For me, I have found with J-Nats that this is very important to get the most out of the progression. You can tell how fine your stone is by looking at the bevel reflection. Not to obvious in some of the articles that I have read is that the Japanese look at the bevel reflection to decide what stage of polishing they are at. If you have done this and tried the varied water, no water, or slurry variations and still are not happy with the results then YES you need another stone. I prefer to have a stone that is just used for the final finishing only and another one to get me 95% of the way there. I also feel this is the most cost effective. The Maruka Nakayama Kiita that I have for the final polishing is only 5.25 inches long and would it would be a pain to work all the way up the progression with such a small stone. I am sure that I would have to drop at least $700 for an identical stone 8 inch long. I got mine for a fraction of that.

I hope this is post is not to tedious but I am finding all this J-Nat stuff like an onion, the more that I peel back the more questions I have. I am fortunate to have an edge that is just "perfect" for me. Very nice place to be.

Take Care,
Richard

@ mainaman,

Escher is 12K, Nakayama 20-30K. I think the jump from 1K to Nakayama is too high, unless your Nakayama is a coarser variety.

Originally Posted by riooso

This is a very timely thread! I have only had my J-Nat about 3 days and it has been a very eye opening experience. This stone has made me question many things that I took for granted in the past.

I use to hone using various stones and then finished up with Shapton 16 and 30K stones then finally 0.1 micron diamond film. When honing I noticed that the bevel would polish to a very bright mirror finish when I was done. The natural gave a polish, but in a hazy kind of way.

The shave test.. the natural gave me a shave that is far superior to the film in smoothness, very hard to reconcile in my mind. What an amazing shave. The matte finish the natural left is not totally unexpected considering that I have use a coticule for a while. When I use the natural I used a slurry made from the finishing stone. I obtained a J-Nat that is toward the top, for hardness, that the Japanese vendor offered. This begs a couple of questions. Could I obtain a Natural that will polish the bevel to a bright mirror surface? Will it matter? I have been shaving off diamond film, very fine, but still a diamond finish so I think that my point of view is pretty skewed.

Thanks a lot,
Richard

Just to let you know Richard, my razor summer project has been to rework ALL of my double bevel 30k\ .1 Micron film edges to a single bevel Nakayama Asagi finish. The shave test does not lie. Another paradigm bites the dust.....

Originally Posted by Kees

@ mainaman,

I think the jump from 1K to Nakayama is too high, unless your Nakayama is a coarser variety.

Check this out:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...und-silly.html

Originally Posted by Kingfish

Just to let you know Richard, my razor summer project has been to rework ALL of my double bevel 30k\ .1 Micron film edges to a single bevel Nakayama Asagi finish. The shave test does not lie. Another paradigm bites the dust.....

It is hard for the 0.1 film guys isn't it? On the one hand we want the super keen and highly polished razor but dislike the techniques that we had to develop to not cut ourselves. So, did you finally get the hang of the stone you had and, if so, what did you do? You obviously got something going since your beginning post.

Take Care,
Richard

Disclaimer: Please note that everything I described below is what I've found to work on MY stone to create edges that agree with MY face.

I have found that using a slurry on my Nakayama is REALLY REALLY benefial to the function of it. I have a
Nakayama Maruichi Maruka Kiita (enough names??) stone, and a hard one. Although I don't have a similar stone to compare to, it seems very hard in practice and was described as such by the reputable vendor.

I don't think speed and fineness are necessarily negatively coorelated, i.e. a finer stone doesn't necessarily imply a slower hone, and coarser doesn't always imply faster. That said, it's still not terribly quick even with a heavy slurry. When doing X-strokes with little pressure it takes about 100-200 strokes to make the slurry grey. Whether or not that's fast for its grit size, I don't know, and really don't care! It's a natural stone so I know you really can't give it a grit rating, and it really doesn't matter to me anymore since it's consistently given me good shaves.

What I've found to work well is to use a slurry created using a matching Nakayama slurry stone, and hone using that slurry until it is pretty pastey. As mentioned above, this usually takes 100-200 strokes. I've only done this when the edge is fairly sharp, i.e. off of an 8k, coticule, or Mejiro nagura slurry.

Although I do finish on a dried slurry-paste, and not clean water, it leaves a very sharp edge. Also, it leaves a very uniformly shiney bevel that is kind of hazy with no appearance of scratches. I know the visual appearance of the bevel doesn't tell you much about the edge and isn't always important, but I really like how uniform it looks after I'm done.

After a good stropping the edge is more than ready. I know the HHT is subjective, but I've found even the most thin hairs fall silently when lowered to the edge. It's still pretty smooth on my face though, although it's still possible to get some weepers if you're not too careful. But it's generally a pretty skin friendly edge.

So I definitely believe in the power of slurry with this stone. But, my stone seems to do very little with just water as it's a hard stone with not a very strong cutting power. Slurry really seems to "unleash" it.

Anyways, those are some of my observations about my Nakayama!

Thanks Dave, it is good to hear about different stones. Mine is a Kiita also but it does sound a little softer than yours. It will not raise a slurry when used with just water. I would speculate, and it is speculation, that if you were to get out the magnifier that the bevel texture would change using water only. Going about 50 laps the bevel would change from a slightly hazy to more of a polished look and the reflection of a light bulb would look like you are looking in a mirror.

Take Care,
Richard

Originally Posted by riooso

Thanks Dave, it is good to hear about different stones. Mine is a Kiita also but it does sound a little softer than yours. It will not raise a slurry when used with just water. I would speculate, and it is speculation, that if you were to get out the magnifier that the bevel texture would change using water only. Going about 50 laps the bevel would change from a slightly hazy to more of a polished look and the reflection of a light bulb would look like you are looking in a mirror.

Take Care,
Richard

I will indeed try to do that! I just shaved with a razor that was honed using my Nakayama and slurry today. I will give it a bunch of laps with plain water and examine the bevel under 30x (using my amateur magnifyer I might add). Usually the bevel does not really change that much when I use my stone with just water. But I will try to get an estimate as to how many laps it took with this razor for there to be a noticeable change on the bevel. Also, I will shave with the same razor tomorrow to see if the laps with just water made a difference to the shave quality.

I have not really experimented much lately, so it will be nice to try something! I will report back.