Quote Originally Posted by wsfarrell View Post
JUST MY OPINION

If you're using slurry, I think it should always be a powdered version of the exact stone you're using, which means the nagura stone is either

1. a piece broken off from your larger stone, or
2. diamond

There are dozens of different kinds of stones out there being sold as slurry or nagura stones. Unless you've been polishing Japanese swords for 20 years, I don't see how you could intelligently pick one to use with your particular finisher, much less a progression.
Not just your opinion. I don't know if that is correct or not but I have read that So Yamashita (Japan Tool) prefers the diamond plate to create the slurry to avoid grit contamination. So says,

"Secret MUST item for using hard natural stones. Nagura stones cannot be used for harder natural stones, nor on various Suita stones.

The polishing parcticles of Nagura is larger than the particles of super fine finishing stones, and when the stone is hard, the Nagura's particle will scratch the bevel before they are ground to smaller size. Using diamond stone to create the initial slurry, you are getting the slurry that is made of the finishing stone itself. You'd be surprised how much better result you get by this technique.

Also, when you use a Nagura on Suita stones, the coarse Nagura particles will get stuck in the Su (the holes in Suita stones) and will keep scratching the bevel, because these particles won't get ground to smaller sizes."

Quote Originally Posted by onimaru55 View Post
Jimmy, if you hone with a progression of synthetics up to 8 k or even a bit higher, one good J-nat polisher is all you need... or maybe 2... or 3
Thanks Oz, that is exactly my routine. Right on about maybe 2 or 3 more .... or even more than that.