Thread: Tsushima "Ocean Blue" 12K

Well there is a guy on You Tube that is called Robert Ortiz . He claims , that he is in love with his Tsushima Blue , and it gave amazingly good edge
Why not - if it is hard stone , maybe is a better strata of the black type of Tsushima
nothing is sertain untill it is proven from time and many people - the stone looks and sounds good .
Maybe is realy good . If everything is right , it may leave a better edge from diferent 12 K stones
Maybe...

Provided I have a good and even bevel set, I can get some pretty remarkable shaving edges off my cnat and light green thuri slurry stone... Or any fine slurry/nagura for that matter, komo nagura included.

Well i just think there is a kind of misnomer....yes this stone is sold as Tsushima Ocean Blue, well there is a little nice story around it...if those have anything to do with the stones sold as Tsushima, i dont know.

In the end i do not believe that this "Tsushima Ocean Blue" cant be compared to a Tsushima what Steven and Euclid have in mind here.

Its a natural fine grit stone which obviously gives a spectacular polishing (as ive seen Robert Ortizes video).

However i ordered a small one and later i will also add my impressions here. It looks promising from its polishing and how compact the stone appears to be. Cant tell anything on the shave right now.

For the Vid search Tsushima Ocean Blue on YT

Originally Posted by RusenBG

Well there is a guy on You Tube that is called Robert Ortiz . He claims , that he is in love with his Tsushima Blue , and it gave amazingly good edge
Why not - if it is hard stone , maybe is a better strata of the black type of Tsushima
nothing is sertain untill it is proven from time and many people - the stone looks and sounds good .
Maybe is realy good . If everything is right , it may leave a better edge from diferent 12 K stones
Maybe...

There is no blue or black strata though. It is only one, the sea mined Tsushima. Back in the old days there was another version, mined from the mountain, but that mine has been closed for many decades and those stones are pretty rare to find. While tsushima stones will vary in hardness and finishing characteristics, they are sold solely as knife stones, they are not even considered tool stones in Japan.
The stone in the pic from Amazon looks way too light gray to be a Tsushima, they are kuro and very dark as many know. I wonder if what is being sold is what is being advertised, one can only speculate here without seeing the stone first hand. I suspect this is a different stone and in this case all bets are off as far finishing performance compared to what we know Tsushima nagura is capable of doing.

So perhaps this is another case of marketing.. a nice story behind, perhaps a little unfortunate, since we know the reputation of the original Tsushima stone.

@RayClem, smell the slurry when you make it fresh, then smell it after 20, 30, 40 strokes.. If it cuts metal, you will notice (or rather smell) the difference.

My question about auto-slurry was related to honing on water only, but I guess I get the picture.

In terms of haziness, what kind of finish are you seeing on the steel? Jnats will usually leave a haze, maybe semi-mirror on water. The Nani 12k, although I dont own one, should in theory leave a close to mirror finish (minus the 12k stria). I guess someone else can confirm, there are certainly enough owners around here. With that in mind, I don't know how easy it is to compare the striations of a synthetic vs Japanese natural stone, without some serious optics, especially if there is a haze. Euclid?

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I'm thinking about ordering the smaller one as well. I've watched many of the video's by Robert Ortiz on YouTube. He seems knowledgeable enough.

Originally Posted by gcbryan

I'm thinking about ordering the smaller one as well. I've watched many of the video's by Robert Ortiz on YouTube. He seems knowledgeable enough.

Since this stone appears to be a fairly new player, visually at least, the more folks try it the better we will know what it can do.

I just ordered it so we'll see soon enough.

Originally Posted by Srdjan

So perhaps this is another case of marketing.. a nice story behind, perhaps a little unfortunate, since we know the reputation of the original Tsushima stone.

@RayClem, smell the slurry when you make it fresh, then smell it after 20, 30, 40 strokes.. If it cuts metal, you will notice (or rather smell) the difference.

My question about auto-slurry was related to honing on water only, but I guess I get the picture.

In terms of haziness, what kind of finish are you seeing on the steel? Jnats will usually leave a haze, maybe semi-mirror on water. The Nani 12k, although I dont own one, should in theory leave a close to mirror finish (minus the 12k stria). I guess someone else can confirm, there are certainly enough owners around here. With that in mind, I don't know how easy it is to compare the striations of a synthetic vs Japanese natural stone, without some serious optics, especially if there is a haze. Euclid?

Thanks for the feedback so far.

There is a pretty marked difference in appearance between a JNat-finished bevel and a high grit synth-finished bevel at medium to high magnification level. For instance with my ~240x setup there is no mistaking which is which.

Here are a couple examples from a HSS razor I made a while back - note that a carbon steel razor will be a little cleaner/smoother because there are no carbides.

JNat (Asagi/Kiita hybrid, finished on slurry - fairly hard but not 5+):



All synthetic hone progression through Suehiro 20k:

That's some food for thought, yes?
Is it possible that it is better to have some stria? So the hair does not stick to the flat surface of the 20k? In the same theory of cross hatching our nagura stones so they don't stick to the surface?