Nakayama stone thoughts...
Hi all. First off, I am not putting this in the review section because I am not an experienced straight shaver, so I don't want to presume to compare this stone to anything else in that regard. This thread is more of an observation and I thought this would be the best place for it, it's more for discussion than review but if the mods want to move it you have my blessing.
I ordered a Nakayama stone from OS. This is the stone I bought...
Hone #1
As a side note, Old School is a phenomonal seller. I'm glad I scooped this up. I bought the lowest priced one because this was more of an experiment for me. I have the entire line of shapton glass stones, which are the best I have personally used, but I have read so much about these, and found this one to try.
I have been sharpening all my life so I would regard myself as somewhat knowledgable about steels and stones, and I would feel comfortable talking about a stones performance. I have seen photo documentation of natural stones vs synthetic. Here SHAPTON
So I got the stone and used it on my straight and some other knives. I don't have the means to photograph it but the photos you can find on that site comparing the Nakayama and 30k are accurate. The nakayama absolutely blows away the 30k, removing much of the scratch pattern left by the glass stone. It was actually pretty amazing. The stone itself is nice to use, very hard, very flat and takes a while to build up some slurry where as the shapton is much quicker. I can see why people say that it is not a "beginner's" stone. It's not hard to use but it's more a pursuit in perfection that requires the patience and appreciation that would be lost on a beginner.
With the limited amount of straight shaving experience I have the nakayama left a much more comfortable surface. Still very sharp, I would say sharper, but it feels much less aggressive on your skin. On other knives the stone responded the same, though I will probably never use it on anything except for my straight. But all in all the stone is everything people say it is and for an application like a straight razor, it seems like the better option to me than any sort of synthetic finishing stone, of which I have tried many.
But for a knife and hone junky, within 2 hours of using it, this stone jumped up to the top of my favorites list. This is the only natural stone I have tried, but I would definately consider this option in the future based on what this natural one does.
Impressive.