Thread: Why not Suita stones for razors?

Gents,

I'm shopping a new stone. I'm looking for a 'pretty' stone with lots of kanji on it that will sit on a bookshelf and look nice in between my pipes, the decantor of scotch, and my dad's baseball.

While doing this window shopping, I run across a lot of suita stones that are advertised as being super fine. But none of them are advertised as being suitable for razors. Is there something about the su that makes them not prodce the edge we are seeking?

I've got two, one okudo that's a bit coarse for razors, but smooth, and I'm sure it would do a fine job finishing them - better than most cotis I've seen.

And another one I got many years ago from Alex Gilmore that is of unknown mine origin, also smooth, a little finer than the okudo and I'm sure it would finish a razor.

I think it's probably the quality of most of them (that a good one will release some slurry while sharpening tools) that takes them out of recommendation for a razor.

Personally, if I were shopping for one for razors, I'd look for one that didn't have too many cracks (and definitely none that could be felt or that had toxic particles), and one where the dealer said it was really fine and not scratchy. Big pretty ones cost money, though, and there seems to be less koppa and small stones of quality suita - certainly less than tomae-ish stones and hard stuff coming out of shoubu these days (though the shoubu that I have - the ones that are inexpensive now - is a superb razor finisher. I think gray stones must not be very desirable in japan or they wouldn't be $250 for a 4 pound bench stone).

So, I honed a razor on the stone that I got from alex. It's a stone that makes black slurry with tools pretty quickly (albeit with more pressure). I used it to finish a japanese razor, a tanifuji, today, because I didn't read the listing very well. The razor has a severe warp at the toe, and I didn't feel like spending much time on it, so I set a bevel with a soft arkansas stone and then brought it to a polish with very light slurry on the japanese stone and then put it to the linen and leather. HHT results are promising, we'll see tomorrow. I'll scrounge up a picture of the stone. It's a stone I use for tools, but I do keep it flat.

The feel with razors is fantastic, no stray scratches and nothing remotely similar to stiction on it. The story with tools is the same, nothing is nicer to use on tools than a nice suita.

If you can find hard enough suita it will work for razors.
I have a Shinden Sunashi suita that works great for razors, so they are out there just rare.

I have a hard piece of uchigumori(basically sunashi) that has given me some of my best shaves.

These are intended for tool stones, but the stone on the left it turns out is very capable of finishing razors:



No clue what the stone is on the left, but it is an undesirable color for a suita and I got it years and years ago from Alex Gilmore. It was affordable (in relative terms, still was about $450 at the time) probably because of the color but also because of the unknown mine.

It's fast on slurry, but very slow on clear water, same thing for tools - it brings everything to a bright polish if you leave the slurry off.

At any rate, the shave off of it was as good as any finisher I've used, but it has a very smooth feel on clear water.

Suita on the right is okudo, but the dark spots are a bit coarse and uneven for a razor.

I was compromised with the razor that I sharpened, so no super light pressure on the suita, which makes the results more impressive. The tanifuji razor that I got has a warp so large but over such a small difference that in order to hone it, one literally has to put their fingers on the bevel and push it down to contact the stone. I have never honed a razor with as bad of a warp. Regardless, those warps don't matter on the face, skin moves a whole lot more, and the result was very good.

A much different experience than the stuff like the very fine barber hones, but after linen and leather, the edge is just as keen smooth - enough to make a couple of small weeps, but no irritation. The polish on the edge of the razor was bright and no blackening of the water occurred once I removed the slurry.

The speed on slurry makes both of these excellent tool stones.

Both of these are large stones, the rectangular stone about 8x3 and somewhere around 38 mm thick.

Here's a couple of mine. The grey one with the karasu pattern and renge is a Narutaki from Alex and is I believe, a teniyou or upper suita. It's very much like an uchigumori which is also from the same formation. It isn't as fine as the finest tomae finishers, but produces a lovely smooth coticule-like edge.

The other is a shiro suita from the deep layers, also from Alex, and it's harder, finer, and also produces a good razor edge, especially on clear water.

They're out there.

Cheers, Steve

Steve,

I have a stone that looks like your top one. Wicked love on japese chisels....

It's killer on knives, don't do tools (yet).

Cheers, Steve

Originally Posted by Steve56

Here's a couple of mine. The grey one with the karasu pattern and renge is a Narutaki from Alex and is I believe, a teniyou or upper suita. It's very much like an uchigumori which is also from the same formation. It isn't as fine as the finest tomae finishers, but produces a lovely smooth coticule-like edge.

The other is a shiro suita from the deep layers, also from Alex, and it's harder, finer, and also produces a good razor edge, especially on clear water.

They're out there.

Cheers, Steve

Love the cream colored suitas, but don't have one yet. Now I have a jones for one again because of talk here and elsewhere.

One nice thing about the shiro and cream colored suitas, and the light gray one that I have to some extent, it's easy to see how much metal they're removing (or more preferably with razors, to confirm once the steel is polished that they're really not removing any).

I took shave #2 of the new razor off of the suita today, and at this point it is my best shaving razor. I wouldn't have expected it from a suita stone that works well with tools, and I wouldn't have expected the razor which has a major defect to be up to it all the way along the edge.