Thread: Jnat Finisher honing with Water Only

Originally Posted by Jimbo

So just buy yourself some nagura progression pieces and a base piece of marble/slate/something hard. Why fork out Jnat-cash on a base stone you don't use? I've never understood the "logic" behind this nagura progression honing and then *not* using the base stone at the end.

My Nakayama asagi works extremely well without a "tomonagura", but if I ever feel in the need I rub it with a diamond plate to get some slurry. Works very well either way. So to answer your question yes there are Jnats out there that work very well with water only (sometimes I even use it dry - feels like silk no matter what you do with it in fact).

I think the trick is to get good information from a good vendor who is not just going to push what they have in stock on you. I waited almost 4 months for my stone to be sourced from Japan by my vendor, but then I think my guy works on a different time frame to many people. Well worth the wait, well worth the money.

Good luck.

James.

Good point!

Then people could get a small piece of a good Jnat, grind of a little with the DMT on a cheap marble plate and hone away.
I've tried some set ups like that but to me it seems the slurry needs a good base stone.
I don't know what's going on between the slurry and stone but my guess would be that the slurry particles get a good grip on the stones surface,
so they can work on the steel moving on top of it and in the same process their cutting abilities diminishes.
Another base stone gives another result, sure they are "used", at the end all the slurry does is to lubricate.

Do you say a good finisher should always be able to be used with water only and the Nagura thing is just some trick if you have lower quality stones?

Originally Posted by Lemur

Good point!

Then people could get a small piece of a good Jnat, grind of a little with the DMT on a cheap marble plate and hone away. I've tried some set ups like that but to me it seems the slurry needs a good base stone.

not going to work well because marble is not a JNat and has different properties.

Do you say a good finisher should always be able to be used with water only and the Nagura thing is just some trick if you have lower quality stones?

the nagura is used to emulate grit progression on one base stone.
A good finisher should be able to be use with water only, how much work can be done on water depends on the stone.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Both these questions could be qualified a little by what you call finishing.

If by finishing you mean 3-5 light strokes or similar then yes there are are really good hard & also slightly less hard finishers that will work with water only.

Also, Iwasaki san does mention using water alone to finish a razor after removing the "false edge " with CrO. Read it again & you will see he says to remove all traces of slurry on the stone for this part of the honing.

Yes I understand "finishing" is a little fuzzy, we all have different standards, from 8K and up.
But when Iwasaki talks about the finishing honing, he says to use a pressure of 165g, that's a lot of pressure.
Which I take as the hone is so fine even with that pressure it will still only remove very very little steel.
As a final step he talks about water only, but then it's also a very light last touch of moving the blade parallel to the edge and only 1-2 mm.
I think that quite far from the honing on water only I've seen others do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a light hand won't work for finishing and I'm normally all in on "every which way that works",
but I'm trying to understand more about how they used their stones and at 165g of pressure all I can think of is a slurry broken down to pure lubrication.

Mainaman; "not going to work well because marble is not a JNat and has different properties."

Well that was my point!

"A good finisher should be able to be use with water only, how much work can be done on water depends on the stone."

So, my stones are not that good then?
If I follow Iwasakis paper to the letter I get a perfect result tho, tomo nagura and all.
Why didn't Iwasaki point us to the good stones then and tell us to go with water only?

Originally Posted by Lemur

So, my stones are not that good then?

It will also with the slightest pressure knock off pieces of the stones that scratch stone and steel badly.

This does not sound good but if you have worked out your stones & get good shaves then you can be happy.

If I follow Iwasakis paper to the letter I get a perfect result tho, tomo nagura and all.
Why didn't Iwasaki point us to the good stones then and tell us to go with water only?

Maybe the stones he chose to use worked best this way. I have an Iwasaki select stone & I find it not particularly hard or fine. It works well with Nagura but I have a preferred finisher that can take the edge a little further. It is almost immaterial whether I use a little slurry or plain water to finish & often I will do 5-6 strokes dry. I simply do what needs to be done
It may not work for you or your stones but why can't you accept that plain water works for some of us ? Don't forget the SRP motto ~ YMMV

Originally Posted by Lemur

Why didn't Iwasaki point us to the good stones then and tell us to go with water only?

Because they are naturals and all vary in quality and properties. I view the manuscript as a set of guidelines of how a Jnat can be used, not as a rule book to follow.
Every stone is different and then some of the steps that Iwasaki lists may or many not be necessary.

Anyone else tried the Iwasaki water only parallel finishing? How does it work & how long do you spend doing it? I read something like 15 minutes. Couldn't imagine honing for that long unless regrinding a bevel, much less finishing!

Originally Posted by PA23-250

Anyone else tried the Iwasaki water only parallel finishing? How does it work & how long do you spend doing it? I read something like 15 minutes. Couldn't imagine honing for that long unless regrinding a bevel, much less finishing!

The book by Iwasaki is just a set of guidelines for me. I never payed attention to his techniques, one can get perfectly fine edge using the old boring x-strokes and circles.

As above, I use it as a guideline. More like 15 seconds than 15 minutes . Often just 5-6 X strokes works for me.

Onimaru55 and Mainaman, I understand you've got some really nice rocks but do you not have any that don't go well with water only?