Thread: New genuine Nakayama?

This doesn't just apply to honing stones.

Someone well versed in a particular rock or mineral can often times I.D the location just by looking at it. This is especially true of something like Turquoise in matrix. A collector could tell you what state, region and mine it's from based on the coloration and patterns.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Alx, as an interested observer I've been following your posts on this. Not being familiar with the geography of Japan I'm wondering what would the characteristics of a stone from the Narutaki mine be ? A finisher or a coarser mix ?

While Germany did not have volcanic eruptions AFAIK, is there any geologic historical info you can give regarding the Thuringan stones and perhaps the coticules ? I'm very interested in this stuff.

Jimmy, sorry but I know zero about the european stones, but I have a handful of coticules and they are totally cool and very interesting.

The Narutaki was an old historic mine and there is now a hospital built on the site. The mines earliest tunnels (and they were tunnels, not pits) were dug at the upper elevations where the sharpening stone material was closest to the surface due to the lack of topsoil and because the mountain sides (really hillsides) were exposed to the weather. In all of the old mines the tunnels were always hand dug and continued to be so up to the current time although now most miners do use some small amounts of dynamite. As the upper tunnel payed out of the good stone they followed the vein down the hill side and opened the next tunnel at a lower level and eventually over the years the last tunnels were dug pretty close to the valley floor. Nakayama was even lastly dug below the water table line in the 1960s. At Narutaki sometime just before the second World War they brought in heavy modern 1920's-30's steam shovels and dug out the last of the Narutaki stones of which some were reportedly of very large size. Because Narutaki is within walking distance to the Kyoto city center they eventually chose to build a hospital at the valley floor level of the property. The original hillsides still raise up behind the hospital.

So Narutaki did produce some grade 24 larger stones, the granular patterns are similar to Nakayama with is only about a quarter mile or so up the valley, the skin on the stones that is made up of hard chert particles mixed with other minerals is very similar to the Nakayama as you can see below and contain the ocher, umber and burnt umber colors but is absent of the black sparkle component. These stone sediments were formed in the late Triassic to early Jurassic period about 225million years ago, and millions of years later when the formation was scraped off the Pacific plate the stone was exposed to volcanic type of heat which toasted the stone and I speculate that this could be one reason why the kawa skin from different areas of the Tamba Terrane looks different and mybe why those sparkles appear on the Nakayama stones.

The stones from the Higashi mono or "eastern things" tend to be finer than the Nigashi mono "western things" stones that are farther away from Kyoto city and Narutaki is a Higashi mine.

Alx

Thanks Alx, so I assume that the honing characteristics vary to some extent with these ? IOW, while you can ID them as to region/color the honing performance/purpose is a matter of trying the stone to see what you've gotten ? Some are finer than others and like that ?

So the "skin" on my jnats are actually... Dinosaurs?

Originally Posted by alx

Jimmy, sorry but I know zero about the european stones, but I have a handful of coticules and they are totally cool and very interesting.

The Narutaki was an old historic mine and there is now a hospital built on the site. The mines earliest tunnels (and they were tunnels, not pits) were dug at the upper elevations where the sharpening stone material was closest to the surface due to the lack of topsoil and because the mountain sides (really hillsides) were exposed to the weather. In all of the old mines the tunnels were always hand dug and continued to be so up to the current time although now most miners do use some small amounts of dynamite. As the upper tunnel payed out of the good stone they followed the vein down the hill side and opened the next tunnel at a lower level and eventually over the years the last tunnels were dug pretty close to the valley floor. Nakayama was even lastly dug below the water table line in the 1960s. At Narutaki sometime just before the second World War they brought in heavy modern 1920's-30's steam shovels and dug out the last of the Narutaki stones of which some were reportedly of very large size. Because Narutaki is within walking distance to the Kyoto city center they eventually chose to build a hospital at the valley floor level of the property. The original hillsides still raise up behind the hospital.

So Narutaki did produce some grade 24 larger stones, the granular patterns are similar to Nakayama with is only about a quarter mile or so up the valley, the skin on the stones that is made up of hard chert particles mixed with other minerals is very similar to the Nakayama as you can see below and contain the ocher, umber and burnt umber colors but is absent of the black sparkle component. These stone sediments were formed in the late Triassic to early Jurassic period about 225million years ago, and millions of years later when the formation was scraped off the Pacific plate the stone was exposed to volcanic type of heat which toasted the stone and I speculate that this could be one reason why the kawa skin from different areas of the Tamba Terrane looks different and mybe why those sparkles appear on the Nakayama stones.

The stones from the Higashi mono or "eastern things" tend to be finer than the Nigashi mono "western things" stones that are farther away from Kyoto city and Narutaki is a Higashi mine.

Alx

AMAZING... Speechless...

Thank you...

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Thanks Alx, so I assume that the honing characteristics vary to some extent with these ? IOW, while you can ID them as to region/color the honing performance/purpose is a matter of trying the stone to see what you've gotten ? Some are finer than others and like that ?

Jimmy
Yes you are correct it is always best to try out the stones first with your own steel because it really does come down to the character of the steel and stone.

Originally Posted by alx

Jimmy
Yes you are correct it is always best to try out the stones first with your own steel because it really does come down to the character of the steel and stone.

Maybe a bit of a strange question but:

In your experience, are there similarities in "smell" and mines? For example, my stone has a "peppery" or "smell-of-rain-after-a-hot-day" smell when honing, are there mines with a distinctive smell?

Kindest regards

Originally Posted by Fikira

Maybe a bit of a strange question but:

In your experience, are there similarities in "smell" and mines? For example, my stone has a "peppery" or "smell-of-rain-after-a-hot-day" smell when honing, are there mines with a distinctive smell?

Kindest regards

Fikira

Funny but this turns out to be a subject of interest of mine too. I have talked with a couple of my friends here in the wine business and they both showed interest is developing some ideas along these lines. It hasn't been a top priority for me lately but I am in Japan right now buying stones and I will breach this subject here in the next few days to a couple of old timers here.

To my reasoning there is no reason why a stone from a particular mine should not smell unique to its location. Wines do, whiskies do and so does tobacco for their own reason. These Japanese natural stones are not just your everyday average stone that you find in a river bed or on the side of a mountain. These are sedimentary rocks contain not only silica but clays containing micro organisms resulting from the original ancient creation but also from water borne seepage in the more recent past.


The fact that the mines are spread out over a swath of land near Kyoto provides them with an opportunity to be maybe more unique as to and of themselves then some fellows here think is worth talking about, but it interests me. I asked my friend in Napa about it because in the wine industry there already is a vocabulary used to describe the nuances regarding wine. There is also one in place regarding Scotch whisky that is based in part around peat infused ground water and salt spray. This has something to do with the vats and barrels but also with the ingredients and the local water used.

There is no reason in my mind why these natural stones shouldn't have some identifiable odors that are unique to, if not particular if not a certain mine maybe at least to a part of the valley from where they were taken from. At the same time the useful study of the above might not be worth the time and trouble, and of little interest to anyone other than the retired and bored crowd.

best wishes,
Alx

Yes. And then again, there is no reason why it should smell different. It's sediment. Pretty much anything with similar composition would smell the same, whether the grit is the size of marbles or microscopic, and whether it comes from one country or another. You can never make any sort of claim with any measure of certainty.

While the clay matrix does have a smell when wet, I'd like to point out to future readers of this thread that claiming to be able to infer the quality or provenance of a stone by its smell would be as ridiculous as witch smelling.

All of my stones smell like pipe tobacco, both natural and synthetic stones. As far as honing qualities, I've got a yellow/green escher that smells like Gawith & Hoggarth's Rum Flake and it is a great stone. If your sniffing around for a good one I recommend that aroma .........