Thread: Help with JNAT

J.G.
This has been a really helpful post, and I hope the stone works out for you. For the Jnats I find it helpful to remember that these stones really are different from one to the next, just like the Coticules or Arkansas's are within the various veins. You could say that each particular stone has a personality that is unique. This is both good and bad. Good if you like learning by doing, but bad if you are expecting to "buy and edge" from a stone.

The natural stones from Japan's consistent character is that they expect you to learn from them, to learn how to unlock their abilities and subtleties. This can be frustrating and a long process for some, it might even take a few weeks to figure out a stone, the slurry and the nagura. If you just happened late last night to create a good edge in your second honing attempt, you might have lucked out, or you might have some inherent honing skills. But at least you got over the hump.


If you want you can use your natural stones under a faucet you do you can polish the blade to a fairly high polish. This is because any loose slurry of loose grit is taken off the table before it has a chance to scratch the blade. With Jnats it is the slurry that gives the blade a matte finish because the grit particles are of a multitude of sizes, they are loose to float around and they break and cleave as they are tumbled against each other under the weight of the blade creating friction. Also their scratches are short and intermitent I think that this varied scratch pattern could be one reason that edges can hold up under use. I hope you have many good shave ahead.

Keep it up, Alx

Alx, thanks! I think I've got the bug. I've got enough sharpening stuff that at a moments notice I can put on an edge that's good enough for almost anything--save a few specialized applications in tough materials. "Shaving" is ok, so I'm looking forward to developing better skills. But I don't need to a buy an edge as you put.

Thus I'm definitely in the camp of guys who want to try and experiment and learn and work with. I just found a website called easternsmooth that is chock full of fascinating information. It tells me I need to learn about nagura.

An interesting thread, which brings me back to the adage that, all naturals are or can be different from one side to the other, let alone from one to another.

The other day I went to a stone yard to select some granite slabs for a project. We had selected a particular stone for color and were going to pick the individual slabs that would be used.

The 5-6 slabs of that stone in the “public” section of the yard that we were shown were nothing like the samples in color. This yard has thousands of slabs, they are cut, tagged and stacked on edge as they were cut from the stone, much like wood veneers.

The yard man said they had more of the same stone, probably cut from the same rock in another nonpublic part of the yard. He took us there and showed us more slabs some of which looked exactly like the sample.

All the slabs are coded and sequentially tagged so they can tell you from which rock and where in the cutting each slab came from. All the slabs we saw of that particular granite came from the same rock but were dramatically different in color. According to his tagging inventory, the pieces we ultimately selected, exactly matching the sample were less than 10 inches apart in the rock. Add to that the color varied from within the slab from one end to the other.

So if something as distinguishing as color changes as a result of mineral content in the forming process, absolutely something subjectively minute as cutting/polishing ability can and is impacted by the same random mineral placement.

This for me was a very dramatic example of what I knew in my dealing with naturals. If you get the opportunity to visit a stone yard it is a very interesting place, I also came away with some “Free Samples” for honing film from my new BFF the yardman.

To the OP, honing for razors is as you are discovering much different that sharpening tools. I have done both, much of what you know can and may translate, but this is a case of the more you know the more you realize how much you don’t know.

Slicing wood and slicing hair…from your face, are two completely different worlds.

Enjoy the ride.

Euclid,

you nailed an issue (issue: Hah!!) for me. Variability of nature, the surprise factor, is the very thing making these things fascinating to me. Somehow, the tantalizing prospect of finding something from nature that could be better than man made, the search for it, is more fun than actually getting the job done.

Yes, my friend. That is called HAD.

Welcome to the club.