JNat progression

I just received a Shoubudani Asagi Lv 5+ stone and a set of Asano Nagura stones. I watched Lynn do a sharpening and he used one Nagura so I am curious if any of our experienced honers use 3 stones (course, medium and fine) or do you use just one and if one which one? I've been using a Shoubudani Karasu rated 5 which is softer then the new stone with only the Nagura that came with it. Not sure what grade it is. Attachment 249921Does a nice job but wanted to see if I could take the razors to the next level.

I use five nagura, in this order: botan, tenjyou, mejiro, koma, and tomo. I would use care when first using your shoubudani asagi; the one I had was loaded with toxic inclusions, and I understand this to be a common problem with many of them. They manifested as tiny sparkling specks spread throughout the stone, that showed up readily in good light and could be felt with light fingertip pressure. They ruined the edge for shaving.

See this thread, starting at my post: http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...ml#post1601266

It depends on the keeness of the edge which one is best to start with. You can not really compare Jnats with synthetics but a Botan starts at about 6k. Tenjyou and Mejiro starts at about 8k. All slurries of them become as finer as longer you hone with and as more you dilute them. After all Asano naguras you should use a Tomo nagura and dilute until you have nearly water only.

It only makes sense to use naguras that are less fine than your hone.

I have a Shoubudani Asagi Lv 5++ I got from Alex at the Japan Stone. He provided a matched nagura, but I just use a Diamond Atoma 1200 plate to raise a slurry from the hone and keep diluting it till the edge is ready for my clear water finishing stage. Strop on clean leather, test for hht, more clear water X strokes as needed, repeat till I get good hht all along the edge.

I decided to keep it simple and remove as many variables as I could from the process.

I do use Shapton glass stones 4k & 8k as needed before jumping on my Jnat.

Good luck, I hope that stone set works out well for you!

Use all of them, you need a tomo or dmt plate slurry to finish on
I use 7 nagura sometimes

You won't need all of the naguras every time.
Last time I honed a keenish edge I only used a tomonagura. As the particle size of the tomonagura slurry decreases you may not even need to finish with water only.