Thread: My jnat bevel-setter / arato (iyoto)

Just picked this up from 330 and I think I like it. Fairly small working area and needed a bit of DMT work, but I think this is an interesting and overlooked stone.







I know opinions are mixed on low grit naturals for razors. In fact, I bought this for shaping work on knife blades, but with some slurry off a DMT 325 it cuts pretty well. Look out for su.

cheap white binsui from chefknivestogo is a good bevel setter, and fast, but it's a bit sloppy.

I have a grayish iyo, its like nagura, except not scratchy like coarse nagura. good between binsui and suita.

only thing i know about JNAT's is most of them are pretty stones !!
nice hunk of rock you have there !!

I haven't used a binsui but I have had them in my hands. Seems similar... Some inclusions, hard and almost like a cross between porcelain, mikawa nagura and coral.





I was using heavy pressure and getting good cutting but very fine scratches. By contrast, my Chosera 400 felt similar but left major chips in this home-forged O1 blade. The Chosera 1000 was better, and similar in cutting speed, but the Chosera was better if I'm honest: more real estate, consistent, smooth, free of inclusions, etc. Still, I like it.

In retrospect, the chips may have been due to the DMT 220 which seems to fracture the edge on big diamonds, and the Chosera 400 catches on the carbides as well.

Anyway, the iyoto seems to glass over a bit. I may have to scuff it up with 80 grit sandpaper or something.

Yeah, binsui is more porous and softer and lets go of grit more easily.

I have only had two of the binsui/arato, but they are not similar to the hard iyos that fujibato sells. I think the hard iyos are a good stone prior to a fast finisher, but the binsui and arato are more like 600-1000 type stones in terms of finishing speed, and both of mine will shed grit under tools pretty easily (maybe not quite so readily under a razor, but they'd refresh easily and they are too porous to glaze over like the hard iyos will. Hard iyos work better with a slurry stone.)

Yup. Not a great bevel setter it turns out. The slurry is powerful but hard as hell to raise without a diamond plate, and the stone gets glassy.

Can be used to erase coarser honing scratches but probably works against the sharpness of the cutting edge, so this stone is probably more useful for knives than razors.

Originally Posted by Atchbo

Yup. Not a great bevel setter it turns out. The slurry is powerful but hard as hell to raise without a diamond plate, and the stone gets glassy.

Can be used to erase coarser honing scratches but probably works against the sharpness of the cutting edge, so this stone is probably more useful for knives than razors.

The more I hear about these, the more variable they sound. the one bad thing about a bunch of loose particles of various sizes floating around is that inevitably, some of them will be quite large (the particles) and upon bevel set, they will leave scratches just up from the bevel, and those will not be removed by a subsequent step. It's no real threat, but it's unsightly. I believe I've set one bevel with my binsui, but most of the binsuis others have described seem unsuitable for it.

At any rate, I find a slurried arkansas stone (something like an old soft arkansas or a hard arkansas) a better bevel setter, and to be my favorite bevel setter of all. They are common, too. I also think the ability to use oil makes a coarse stone work a lot better - it doesn't have to constantly shed particles to avoid loading like a coarse waterstone does.

The razor you showed has large facets, I can understand where many natural stones would run out of steam (the particles are just not the right combination of hard and sharp to reach deep on a large surface), but the aspect you described is there with synthetic stones, that they can do the deep work but then leave damage on the edge.

Maybe not so much variable as need to be understood, and used the right way. I'll keep this stone and use it in future, likely in a progression with my aoto for knives, and maybe some other messing around. I only wish it was a full hone size so more normal strokes/technique could be used.

Originally Posted by Atchbo

Yup. Not a great bevel setter it turns out. The slurry is powerful but hard as hell to raise without a diamond plate, and the stone gets glassy.

Can be used to erase coarser honing scratches but probably works against the sharpness of the cutting edge, so this stone is probably more useful for knives than razors.

Good you found out this without spending a lot of money.
It has been established that there are no J-Nat bevel setters in existence. They are either too slow or they chip the edges.