JNAT & Nagura questions/identification - help!

Ive done that also, to 20k. Even a chosera 1 and 5 then 2 tomos. But my best edges imo come from chosera1k, full nagura on kouzaki or oohira suita then nakayama or ozuku with full progression. I feel the difference in smoothness. Ymmv.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

Well it's good idea to try as many jants as it is ever possible but I think that any good research should be well targeted not random.
+1 - This is a good idea for 99.9% of the members on here and nothing wrong with this. This is good if you want buy a stone for a selected purpose although it also restricts the overall knowledge that could be gained. You need some of the bad, medium, good, excellent to get the all-round knowledge. If not all you will ever know is hard finishing stones.

That's why I'd prefer to stick to Iwasaki's recommendations for choosing razor hones.
That's why I am very grateful to Jim Rion and to Alex Gilmore for sharing their experience with jnats.
+1 again - These guys are very knowledgeable, i would hate to know how may stones they have used! Without them we wouldn’t have the jnat knowledge we do today. I only wish that i could one day have half the knowledge that these guys do!!!

And that is why I'd avoid to play crap shoot with such guys like 330mate.
While 330mate does sell some crap.. a lot of crap.. He also sells some great stones too. I have two 3 stones from him and all are very usable one is a very good finisher in fact.

I belive that buying and trying of thousands and even millions of crap-stones wouldn't give you any success.
Trying thousands of stones would give you a lot of knowledge, yes some would be crappy although not all. Providing you had the time to get to know the stone's and you had good honing skills and good jnat experience beforehand, this would be the only way to get a true grasp on jnats. im sure there reselers have many of horible stones that they have purchased over the years and im guessing this is pertly how they have the knowledge they have now.

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Please don’t think I’m disagreeing with anything you are saying, just adding an opinion from my limited experience. I myself have a lot to learn regarding jnats and like i have said, can only hope that i one day have the knowledge of someone like Alex or JimR has :)

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Originally Posted by Lemur

But the Koma is irreverent to a good edge, the Tomo is used at the final stage, after the Koma.
I've got the full set of Mikawa naguras, Botan, Mejiro, Tenjio and Koma, I use them just for fun.
You get the same edge honing on synthetics up to 15-20K and then use the Tomo on a good Jnat.

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Once you have good razor finisher like Nakayama Maruichi Asagi or even better Oozuku Karasu you don't need any tomo nagura.
Such a stones with good honing technique give HHT passing just before stropping.

I'd prefer use different stones for finishing and prefinishing. As for finisher I'd prefer to use it clean with almost no slurry and without any slurry stones.

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Originally Posted by Brighty83

Trying thousands of stones would give you a lot of knowledge ...

You need some of the bad, medium, good, excellent to get the all-round knowledge.
If not all you will ever know is hard finishing stones.

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You don't need any bad stones.
A bad beginning makes a bad ending.

With bad stones you get negative experience.
With thousands of bad stones you get a lot of negative experience.
Do you really need it?

The human lifetime is too short to change it for a crap.
And usually the same is for your budget.

When you have a little or no experience with jnats you could ask the SRP community for advice which stones are worth to buy and which sellers are worth to trust them to avoid apparent crap stones.
There is already a lot of such an very useful info here.

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Originally Posted by Brighty83

While 330mate does sell some crap.. a lot of crap.. He also sells some great stones too. I have two 3 stones from him and all are very usable one is a very good finisher in fact.

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I have tried some ten to twenty stones from 330mate... Some were usable indeed. But not for razors.
Then I have tryed jnats from the better sources. And now I am very sorry for the wasted time and money.

So I wish you not to repeat my mistakes and to aspire for greatest things and finest stones.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

You don't need any bad stones.
A bad beginning makes a bad ending.
of course no one needs a bad stone! I don't believe that at all. I said:
Trying thousands of stones would give you a lot of knowledge, yes some would be crappy although not all. Providing you had the time to get to know the stone's and you had good honing skills and good jnat experience beforehand, this would be the only way to get a true grasp on jnats.

With bad stones you get negative experience.
With thousands of bad stones you get a lot of negative experience.
Do you really need it?
again, I never said that you would want thousands of bad stones at all, all i said was: Trying thousands of stones would give you a lot of knowledge, yes some would be crappy although not all. Providing you had the time to get to know the stone's and you had good honing skills and good jnat experience beforehand, this would be the only way to get a true grasp on jnats.


The human lifetime is too short to change it for a crap.
And usually the same is for your budget.
100% agree

When you have a little or no experience with jnats you could ask the SRP community for advice which stones are worth to buy and which sellers are worth to trust them to avoid apparent crap stones.
There is already a lot of such an very useful info here.
I have already agreed with you about this. If you re-read my post it states that the resellers are great for knowing what your getting. Again: This is a good idea for 99.9% of the members on here and nothing wrong with this. This is good if you want buy a stone for a selected purpose although it also restricts the overall knowledge that could be gained.


I have tried some ten to twenty stones from 330mate... Some were usable indeed. But not for razors.
Then I have tryed jnats from the better sources. And now I am very sorry for the wasted time and money.
Maybe a bad batch or 20? I know of a few members on here who do have perfectly good stones from him, i also know people of get ripped off. Its a game that no one should play but, poersonally i wouldn't buy from him again.

So I wish you not to repeat my mistakes and to aspire for greatest things and finest stones.
I made my mistakes a long time ago and my lessons have been well and truly learned, i havnt made one for long time now. If it wasn't for my mistakes i wouldn't have the awesome collection i have now and i wouldn't have the advice i do now:)

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If you read my post above a lot of your concerns would have been answered before typing this post. you kinda need to read the full post without cutting sections. If it wasn't clear enough i'm happy to re-write it.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

Thank you for quick reply.

My question has been about tomo nagura ( 共名倉 )。
And I think I'd prefer to buy one good koma than test some hundreds of stones to find which one is better to use it as tomo nagura.

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how do you know you are buying a good Koma? You can never know until you try it.

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As of sample space I don't know how many stones have I tried. I don't count it.
I can say only that I have tried some tens of Nakayama Maruka and Maruichi including Suita, Kiita and Asagi and some good and hard Ozaki.

And I trust Alex Gilmore ( alx ) and his experience about hardness.

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Nakayama is not the only mine that produces razor hones, fixating on certain mine just because it is so hyped in Japan can lead to missing on a lot of great stones. As far as hardness, well people have to sell stones right?

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Well it's good idea to try as many jants as it is ever possible but I think that any good research should be well targeted not random.
That's why I'd prefer to stick to Iwasaki's recommendations for choosing razor hones.
That's why I am very grateful to Jim Rion and to Alex Gilmore for sharing their experience with jnats.
And that is why I'd avoid to play crap shoot with such guys like 330mate.

I belive that buying and trying of thousands and even millions of crap-stones wouldn't give you any success.

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NO doubt one has to try quality stones, what would trying a lot of bad ones teach a honer? I have only tried two 330mate hones, rest from other sources. You have to be careful how much trust you put in any source of information, however. Iwasaki book was written long time ago and is about hones that are no longer easy to find, may be even impossible. The 60's were the golden age of the Nakayama hype, today very few very good ones are left and are very expensive. It is however very nice that Ozuko and Shobodani also produce great razor hones so we can enjoy quality Jnats with the hobby.

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Originally Posted by mainaman

How do you know you are buying a good Koma? You can never know until you try it.

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It's not that hard. You can compare Koma to other nagura stones that you already have.
It should be noticeably finer and leave no outlier scratches.
As for me when I got my Koma I asked one very experienced person to try it and to give me his estimate on quality.

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Originally Posted by mainaman

Nakayama is not the only mine that produces razor hones, fixating on certain mine just because it is so hyped in Japan can lead to missing on a lot of great stones. As far as hardness, well people have to sell stones right?

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It's very common problem... not only for stones... the same is for cars, cameras, hi-fi audio....

So I think you have two different ways.

One is to stick to reputable and "hyped" stones to make your choice space limited.
In this case you have a lot of info on how to use and what to choose for particular sharpening task because such a stones are wide spread, well known, well documented and you can easily get a support from community.
Once you have such a stone you have good starting point to begin and good point of reference to judge on quality of other stones.
That's why I do already have some Nakayama Maruka and Maruichi stones good as reference for jnats, Escher as good reference for european razor hones and some expensive antique translucent arkansases.


The other way is to try every stone you can grab and to work out your own approach to choosing and using stones. It is a way long... and damn expensive. But it could also work.

You get to choose one you like.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

The other way is to try every stone you can grab and to work out your own approach to choosing and using stones. It is a way long... and damn expensive. But it could also work.

You get to choose one you like.

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I still think you need a reference, as you mentioned above or it makes it hard to decide on what's a true hard jnat and what's a true fine Jnat.

In my experience, the super hard Jnat that most people are after are a less common. Without a known hard Jnat and a known super fine Jnat It would take a LOT of stones to work out your own grading system. I even find the grading from different vendors does vary slightly, although, in most cases they are close.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

One is to stick to reputable and "hyped" stones to make your choice space limited.

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Do you mean mine/colour/strata? If this is what you mean, Having two stones from the same mine, strata and colour doesn't mean they will act the same. This is the biggest problem with Jnats, the only way to know how that stone is going to behave is to test the stone.

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Originally Posted by Nikolay

It's not that hard. You can compare Koma to other nagura stones that you already have.
As for me when I got my Koma I asked one very experienced person to try it and to give me his estimate on quality.







It's very common problem... not only for stones... the same is for cars, cameras, hi-fi audio....

So I think you have two different ways.

One is to stick to reputable and "hyped" stones to make your choice space limited.
In this case you have a lot of info on how to use and what to choose for particular sharpening task because such a stones are wide spread, well known, well documented and you can easily get a support from community.
Once you have such a stone you have good starting point to begin and good point of reference to judge on quality of other stones.
That's why I do already have some Nakayama Maruka and Maruichi stones good as reference for jnats, Escher as good reference for european razor hones and some expensive antique translucent arkansases.


The other way is to try every stone you can grab and to work out your own approach to choosing and using stones. It is a way long... and damn expensive. But it could also work.

You get to choose one you like.

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I could not disagree more with your method of choice of a reference stone, but if it works for you then that is all that matters.

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Originally Posted by Brighty83

Do you mean mine/colour/strata?

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No. I mean stones like Nakayama Maruka HATAHOSHI Tomae Kiita from reputed seller.
So it's rather about quality in general, not about specific properties.

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Originally Posted by Brighty83

Having two stones from the same mine, strata and colour doesn't mean they will act the same. This is the biggest problem with Jnats, the only way to know how that stone is going to behave is to test the stone.

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When you are buying stones from good sellers you can always ask them for stone with desired properties.

For example, once I had asked Jim Rion for hard Ozaki suitable for razor honing and I got exactly what I need. And the same with Maxim from Denmark...
As far as I know there are also some more good sellers with good reputation and great experience on jnats. Including Alex Gilmore ( AKA Alx here on SRP ).

As for japanese sellers the main obstacle is that most japanese people don't know English.
Fortunately you will have no such problem with Morihei　（　http://www.morihei.co.jp/english/index.html　）.

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Originally Posted by mainaman

I could not disagree more with your method of choice of a reference stone, but if it works for you then that is all that matters.

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Well, could you say some words about your way that works for you?