Jnat "grit" question

So, as is my mentally unbalanced nature, I am getting the urge to spend more money that I dont actually have.

I have a very sparse set of Jnats. an Asagi, a hard white nagura (not sure what kind) that came with it, a Tsuchima nagura. I get great shaves with it, but just not all that much better than from my Nani12k. It gets a bit "skippy" which is more of an annoyance than anything, but you know how that can get on your nerves if your having a bad day.

So I am curious as to what hone would be the best Final Finish Only stone. As in, which of the various colors/strata would be most likely to have the finest grit?

I dont mind a painfully slow stone if it is going to bring me a feeling of "it dont get better than this"

Do any of the softer stones slurry down to the status of "super fine" or do Jnats fall more into the "The Harder the Finer" category and need to be all shining like an Arkansas stone?

I'm just not digging on the "rub this course stone on this finer stone" thing. I would just as soon have 4 or 5 blocks of stupid expensive single purpose stones.
You know, because. I have no common sense or self control.

You must be my brother from another mother....
Lets go shopping...
What is your ceiling?

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Originally Posted by Aerdvaark

You must be my brother from another mother....
Lets go shopping...
What is your ceiling?

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Plaster and lath

Perfect! Sheetrock and mud here!!:beer1:

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Originally Posted by Magpie

So, as is my mentally unbalanced nature, I am getting the urge to spend more money that I dont actually have.

I have a very sparse set of Jnats. an Asagi, a hard white nagura (not sure what kind) that came with it, a Tsuchima nagura. I get great shaves with it, but just not all that much better than from my Nani12k. It gets a bit "skippy" which is more of an annoyance than anything, but you know how that can get on your nerves if your having a bad day.

So I am curious as to what hone would be the best Final Finish Only stone. As in, which of the various colors/strata would be most likely to have the finest grit?

I dont mind a painfully slow stone if it is going to bring me a feeling of "it dont get better than this"

Do any of the softer stones slurry down to the status of "super fine" or do Jnats fall more into the "The Harder the Finer" category and need to be all shining like an Arkansas stone?

I'm just not digging on the "rub this course stone on this finer stone" thing. I would just as soon have 4 or 5 blocks of stupid expensive single purpose stones.
You know, because. I have no common sense or self control.

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Depends on your price limit.
The most affordable yet dense layer is Namito. Asagi & Kiita colours will be neighbours there.
Travelling higher up towards Aisa & Tomae, ie less dense should be cheaper & deeper down towards Hon Suita will be more expensive.
Of course all those layers can have anomalous densities from stone to stone which is why we always recommend you pick a seller you have faith in & ask them to help you pick.

Razor stones are generally in the hard category to keep the bevels flat. It's not so much about the fineness.

You wouldn't need 4 or 5 expensive stones. A pre polisher & Polisher would be enough.
You could possibly jump from a Tsushima to the pre polisher etc.
Only thing is setting bevels on a natural is much slower than synthetics.

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Razor stones are generally in the hard category to keep the bevels flat. It's not so much about the fineness.

s.

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I would have thought that if it were for final polishing only, there would be so little pressure in use, that keeping things flat would not be an issue

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Originally Posted by Magpie

I would have thought that if it were for final polishing only, there would be so little pressure in use, that keeping things flat would not be an issue

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Yes & no. Soft stones release grit more readily & are rarely as fine as a good hard razor stone, tho some expensive ones come so close there can be overlap. The tendency is to slightly less sharp due to dare I say it "slurry dulling". The edge gets slightly convexed. It's not like you need to lap the stone like a 1k King setting a bevel on a wedge :)

A final edge can be a very personal thing.

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Yes & no. Soft stones release grit more readily & are rarely as fine as a good hard razor stone, tho some expensive ones come so close there can be overlap. The tendency is to slightly less sharp due to dare I say it "slurry dulling". The edge gets slightly convexed. It's not like you need to lap the stone like a 1k King setting a bevel on a wedge :)

A final edge can be a very personal thing.

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Oh by all means, Dare Say It! This is a very real thing that most people dont get. It drove me insane why my edges were not any good when I first started trying to hone with a Coti. a little slurry goes a very long way!
But when I say "soft stone" when using the number system that people seem to like with the Jnats, I was thinking 4-4.5 instead of the 5 or 5+
I also dont get that number system. why not just go 1-10 instead of adding "plus" or half marks.

Because then we'd be looking at 1-10(+), and instead of looking at a stone that's 4 or 4.5, you'd be looking at a range including 8, 8.5, and 9. The half marks and pluses wouldn't go anywhere.

Also, if the scale went to 10, then I regularly would be saying that mine go to eleven!

--big fan of This Is Spinal Tap

You know darned well, that you (and I will too) say that!

But a Marshall amp only goes to 10.

When I had access to such things, I made a knob for my friends amp, it had an 11 on it.

But back on topic....
I know these are small pictures, but the site they came from has right click disabled and I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to capture the larger images.
Described as "very hard and very fine" TAKASHIMA KARASU LV 5
Attachment 257986

Ozuku Mizu Asagi Kan lv 5+ described as Very uniform, very hard and fine Ozuku Finisher

Attachment 257985


Other than price and appearance (karasu = pretty!) what might recommend one stone over the other?

So I found a way to get a larger image, and now I cant make the old smaller one go away. What ever, You guys get the point!

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Originally Posted by Magpie

When I had access to such things, I made a knob for my friends amp, it had an 11 on it.

But back on topic....
I know these are small pictures, but the site they came from has right click disabled and I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to capture the larger images.
Described as "very hard and very fine" TAKASHIMA KARASU LV 5

Ozuku Mizu Asagi Kan lv 5+ described as Very uniform, very hard and fine Ozuku Finisher

Other than price and appearance (karasu = pretty!) what might recommend one stone over the other?

So I found a way to get a larger image, and now I cant make the old smaller one go away. What ever, You guys get the point!

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Oozuku Asagi are known razor quality finishers. Takashima not so much & hard Karasu not so common. Again ask the seller, if you trust him.

The numbers are relative also. I bought a 5+ stone that was softer than my regular finisher so maybe I should look for stones rated 6 :p

Wait, I thought we agreed on 11.:rofl2:
I have both of those stones mentioned above, almost exactly and honestly the Karasu is funner to use, that ozuku is just too damn serious(hard) for me. But works well none the less.

In every way the Oozuku looks much more promising.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

Also, if the scale went to 10, then I regularly would be saying that mine go to eleven!

--big fan of This Is Spinal Tap

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The eleven thing is no joke. I lost a significant portion of my hearing at a Motörhead concert. I fee sure their amps went to eleven.

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Originally Posted by OCDshaver

The eleven thing is no joke. I lost a significant portion of my hearing at a Motörhead concert. I fee sure their amps went to eleven.

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what was that? WHAT?!? I SAID "WHAT DID YOU SAY"?!?

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Originally Posted by Magpie

I have a very sparse set of Jnats. an Asagi, a hard white nagura (not sure what kind) that came with it, a Tsuchima nagura. I get great shaves with it, but just not all that much better than from my Nani12k. It gets a bit "skippy" which is more of an annoyance than anything, but you know how that can get on your nerves if your having a bad day.

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Could you please elaborate on the hone being "skippy?"

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Originally Posted by Utopian

Could you please elaborate on the hone being "skippy?"

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blade sticks....breaks loose, sticks, breaks loose.... Its fine with any sort of slurry, but once its down to plain water, its makes me sad

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

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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.

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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]

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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]

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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. :chapeau

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!

For the record, the stone I am currently using that gets all skippy was sold as a "Shoubu damascus asagi" rated at 5+ for both hardness and fineness

So if I use a nagura from a very fine but slightly softer Nakayama I will get a nakayama edge if I stop early, a blended edge if I allow the slurry to break down more, and the asagi edge if I keep going until the slurry is completely broken down?

Yes, but inevitably the Asagi plays a role throughout the whole honing process. I think the Asagi has to leave its footprint and the Nakayama has to break down to allow sufficient refinement. Does it get skippy even with slurry (at the end most likely)?

Damascus Asagi similar to this?

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...104bc319f9.jpg

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Originally Posted by Steve56

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

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Polished my wedding ring this way, I tried to give it kasumi finish using some suita dust. Didn't really work as I expected, but it sure fixed up minor scratches nicely!

I'm still not entirely sold on the simple "breaking down" of slurry particles. My personal theory of what is going on with the JNat process is that the slurry particles start off possibly clumped and more or less sharp edged. As honing progresses, these break apart into individual particles as well as the sharp edges begin to round and become duller. In addition, swarf from honing intermixes with the slurry. These combined I think causes the cutting to become a bit finer as the slurry is worked. The softer stones will keep cutting longer and faster than the very hard stones as they continue to pull out fresh sharp edged particles. The very hard stones will fairly quickly run out of gas in terms of steel removal and begin to polish as the particles dull and very few fresh sharp edged particles are pulled from the stone. Steel swarf helps with the polishing in the same way that a heavily loaded stone will cut finer than an unloaded stone. This factor is probably more of a burnishing. Anyway, that's my theory.

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Originally Posted by Magpie

For the record, the stone I am currently using that gets all skippy was sold as a "Shoubu damascus asagi" rated at 5+ for both hardness and fineness

So if I use a nagura from a very fine but slightly softer Nakayama I will get a nakayama edge if I stop early, a blended edge if I allow the slurry to break down more, and the asagi edge if I keep going until the slurry is completely broken down?

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You are simply modifying the base stone's qualities. You can't say a Shoubu edge is a Nakayama edge but to confuse further, Nakayama quarry is situated in Shoubudani mountain :)
FWIW both quarries were originally kept for sword polishing.

If I really wanted to spend the money I would try both stones, if the seller was agreeable & keep the preferred one.

Here is the photo from the original sale site. THe stamps are gone now, but it looks pretty much the same....

Attachment 258072


For the record, to keep it clear, THIS is the stone I have right now, and I find it skippy when used with clear water only.

I find the edge it gives to be on par with my Shapton 16k and I was hoping to find a new stone to take me up a notch