Thread: Jnat "grit" question

Does it stick as soon as you switch to just water or only after a while?

It happens once the surface has become burnished. If I take a perfectly fine razor from a Thuri finish and put it to the Asagi with only water and no slurry (after I have finished using it for other razors and it has become shiny) it will do the skippy thing right away.

Sticky=grabby. What else could it mean?...............

Go back and read Stafan's post #7 in the 'Romancing the Hone' thread, that tells you pretty much what you want to tell the seller.

You want a Nakayama razor stone from a layer deeper than the tomae strata, very fine and one that's very smooth so it does not scratch or skip on clear water.

You'll want a tomo that's a little less hard than it is and the tomo should have a lot of grit in it. This tomo will be a little harder than most and quite a bit harder tham what JNS sells as 'tomo extra' - you want a Nakayama tomo to go with it. If you can find a 'clear' one someone has cut from a hone that has physical defects, that's ideal. I believe a lot of commercially sold tomo are tomo because they weren't good hones for some reason and that it not what you want. Sourcing hogh quality razor grade tomo is harder than sourcing the hone.

Cheers, Steve

Originally Posted by Magpie

It happens once the surface has become burnished. If I take a perfectly fine razor from a Thuri finish and put it to the Asagi with only water and no slurry (after I have finished using it for other razors and it has become shiny) it will do the skippy thing right away.

I have a few that do this, but I never finish on water, they are fine enough and finished on slurry they produce the comfortable edge that I like. These stones don't really burnish to the point where the surface becomes glassy (like you can see a reflection in them). Some people, whose razors I have finished this way, on slurry, told me they would prefer a sharper edge and finishing on water would do just that. To me, those edges are too sharp and uncomfortable, so I just don't do it for myself.

As I have 3 bench sized jnats of three different hardnesses, maybe we could trade? PM me if you'd like... save us both some money we don't have [emoji16]

Originally Posted by Srdjan

I have a few that do this, but I never finish on water, they are fine enough and finished on slurry they produce the comfortable edge that I like. These stones don't really burnish to the point where the surface becomes glassy (like you can see a reflection in them). Some people, whose razors I have finished this way, on slurry, told me they would prefer a sharper edge and finishing on water would do just that. To me, those edges are too sharp and uncomfortable, so I just don't do it for myself.

As I have 3 bench sized jnats of three different hardnesses, maybe we could trade? PM me if you'd like... save us both some money we don't have [emoji16]

Same for me. The only JNats I finish on clear water with are the softer ones. Occasionally I will do a few strokes on clear water with a harder JNat but it's very few or the edge is uncomfortable for me. If the stones are used with slurry they won't burnish, the surface will stay slightly matte. Used with straight water the harder stones always burnish up. Some get that sticky feel and some don't. It's also more likely that you'll get that stiction if your razor has a very straight edge rather than a smiling edge.

Originally Posted by Srdjan

I have a few that do this, but I never finish on water, they are fine enough and finished on slurry they produce the comfortable edge that I like. These stones don't really burnish to the point where the surface becomes glassy (like you can see a reflection in them). Some people, whose razors I have finished this way, on slurry, told me they would prefer a sharper edge and finishing on water would do just that. To me, those edges are too sharp and uncomfortable, so I just don't do it for myself.

As I have 3 bench sized jnats of three different hardnesses, maybe we could trade? PM me if you'd like... save us both some money we don't have [emoji16]

Originally Posted by eKretz

Same for me. The only JNats I finish on clear water with are the softer ones. Occasionally I will do a few strokes on clear water with a harder JNat but it's very few or the edge is uncomfortable for me. If the stones are used with slurry they won't burnish, the surface will stay slightly matte. Used with straight water the harder stones always burnish up. Some get that sticky feel and some don't. It's also more likely that you'll get that stiction if your razor has a very straight edge rather than a smiling edge.

Am i correct in my understanding that you are using slurry generated from the base stone itself? or are you using slurry from a nagura of a differing stone?
If its a different stones slurry, why even bother with a Jnat bench stone, and why not just use a piece of frosted glass with powdered Jnat dust sprinkled on it?
I thought the purpose of the finish stone was to be the pure, last touch.
I'll send you all PMs in a little bit. I actually have some work to take care of first.

Oh, and THANKS EVERYBODY! I appreciate all the input.

It doesn't work the same way if you try to use a piece of glass. The slurry also pulls particles from the stone as you hone and the stone itself is actually textured on a microscopic scale, which lets the slurry do is work better too - the slight texture on the stone helps the slurry particles to roll and catch a bit so that the edge actually drags across them rather than just pulling the slurry along with.

I use nagura both from the base stone as well as from other stones - each stone seems to work best with a certain nagura - or a certain few. You find which by trying the various ones you have.

Eric is right, and I asked Alex Gilmore about slurry a couple of years ago and he also said that skurry transferred to plate glass broke down within a minute or two and became useless.

You can put it on a piece of cloth or lint free paper towel and use it to polish even delicate items like razor gold wash, fointain pen nibs and barrels, jewelry, or just about any metal. Over time my Gold Dollar test razors get shinier and don't look half bad for a Gold Dollar.

Cheers, Steve

Most of the tomonagura I have will produce very similar results to the stones' own nagura, at the end. The difference in the beginning is obvious, because I can see what's faster. It so happens that on my stones, the nagura from the base seems to be faster than some 3 tomonagura pieces I commonly use. So why use them? I think because slower sometimes results in better refinement, but this is highly subjective and dependent on the steel. Only my face knows what's best!

The difference at the end is more interesting. Because the slurry particles will break down, I gotta find the sweet spot at which the edge is refined enough to be comfortable and stop before it gets too sharp and harsh (i.e the slurry isn't doing the cutting anymore, but the base stone is now polishing the edge further).

To expand on what eKretz said there, the slurry particles at some point will stop disturbing the surface of the stone, because they break down completely. Probably not entirely, I haven't examined this with a scope or anything.... That's when the stone's own particles on the surface begin to do the polishing. You "burnish" that surface enough and the particles will stop cutting and the polishing beyond that hazy (kasumi) will begin, bringing the steel to a semi-mirror finish. Heck, I pushed my Shobu once so much, on water only, that it brought out a true mirror finish. That isn't how I normally hone, but I wanted to try, to see what happens. I personally did not care for that edge, but I sent the razor to a friend to try and he liked it very much.

What I described above is a behavior of a hard quality stone. Some people like to say "Shobu hard", or "Ozuku hard"... that's very hard, calls for the + in my experience.

A softer stone will not easily burnish, so it might create a semi-mirror finish at best. Also, my softer stones will respond very differently to slurry raised with a diamond VS slurry raised with a piece of rock. In my opinion this makes them much more versatile. It also makes them more tricky to finish on and I like to spend some time honing on pure water to "tame their surface", so they can give their best. Sometimes depending on the steel, this may take a relatively long time. I'm not talking about mid-range soft, but stones that do not auto-slurry, and still have that velvety honing feel (of an Escher, perhaps) and you just know, they are softer. Level 4 maybe... some people say "Nakayama hard", but it is actually about the strata (shallower VS deeper) that Onimaru was talking about above.

Well that turned out to be a lengthy one! It's only from my own experience. I have not handled too many jnats, maybe a dozen? Can't really remember them all!