Thread: New stone Japanese natural, Ozuku Asagi

I hear you Marshal, but let's leave the Coticule guys alone, there must be some Cotis out there you can shave off....lol

Totally feel your pain Marshall, for a long time I felt coticules were for the most part garbage. Then I started focusing in on certain veins and I have to tell you, there are some awesome coticules out there.

I try hard not to knock them. Just because mine was hard to work with doesn't mean they all are. I'll probably buy another down the road, but I'm not just gonna buy another one from Ardennes sight unseen. I'll wait until I can either try it out, or at least get a known good stone that someone is simply looking to trade off in the classified section. That won't be anytime soon though.

I think I may give that and my Jnat a revisit. I've not used either in a while, I'd like to see how they perform following my 12k synthetic. That was also intended as a response to your question about Shoubudanis too. I'm fond of mine. I almost hate to say it, but the little fella gives my translucent Arkies a run for their money.

I was told they can have little black inclusions that can be toxic/detrimental to honing. My stone has black dots, but they're not detrimental. That's something to be mindful of if you pick one up. But overall I'm happy with it.

The best advice that I respect is pointing me to acquiring some nagura stones, from Botan to Mejiro to Tomo. It's all a learn for me at the moment, my only plan was to get a few genuine very hard, fine finishing jnats and go to them after a 10k synthetic edge. That's what I've done do far, but of course I'll advance my thoughts by listening to other more knowledgeable folks.

Originally Posted by bobski

It's all a learn for me at the moment, my only plan was to get a few genuine very hard, fine finishing jnats and go to them after a 10k synthetic edge.

That's all you need. Of course if you wanna play in the mud, ie Nagura, it can be fun.

Above is a photo from my USB 400x cheap scope, it is the final edge on a Dovo 6/8 Stainless blade, from the Ozuku Asagi. I took it from a 10k Naniwa Superstone, then fairly light strokes with slurry made from DN, I let the slurry dry out a fair bit as I lightened things right off to blade weight only. I stropped it up on the Kanayama and had a comfortable shave. (This photo is pre the stropping). It wasn't a spectacular shave, I still have some technique to smooth out, but more than acceptable. The photo is a little blurred but the best I can do on the USB device. Under my loupe it looks better than this fairly high magnification. Any comments or advice is welcome.
Bob

Originally Posted by bobski

Above is a photo from my USB 400x cheap scope, it is the final edge on a Dovo 6/8 Stainless blade, from the Ozuku Asagi. I took it from a 10k Naniwa Superstone, then fairly light strokes with slurry made from DN, I let the slurry dry out a fair bit as I lightened things right off to blade weight only. I stropped it up on the Kanayama and had a comfortable shave. (This photo is pre the stropping). It wasn't a spectacular shave, I still have some technique to smooth out, but more than acceptable. The photo is a little blurred but the best I can do on the USB device. Under my loupe it looks better than this fairly high magnification. Any comments or advice is welcome.
Bob

It's a nicely polished bevel. If you dilute the slurry as you go, even down to plain water for an experiment, the edge may well improve more.

Where you are now, adding 5-6 strokes, at a time, on the gok 20 may get the same results or better.
Test shave between groups of 5 not to push things over the edge, pun intended.

For some JNats I get a much more comfortable edge with tomo slurry. Before you attribute that "not quite there" comfort level to your lack of skill, try some work after that 10k with tomo slurries. The straight water or dilution is worth trying as well, but I never seem to have much luck with that on very hard JNats unless it is very few strokes.

Originally Posted by bobski

The best advice that I respect is pointing me to acquiring some nagura stones, from Botan to Mejiro to Tomo. It's all a learn for me at the moment, my only plan was to get a few genuine very hard, fine finishing jnats and go to them after a 10k synthetic edge. That's what I've done do far, but of course I'll advance my thoughts by listening to other more knowledgeable folks.

You'll get a different answer from everyone you ask. I think a good coarse stone to precede japanese stones is an arkansas stone, and not a synthetic. It's been my experience that you get in less trouble because a slurry-less ark stone will usually not damage an edge whereas some razors just won't tolerate synthetic routines. I have chisels from a highly regarded maker. They're so hard that they will fail late in the honing routine from damage taken early on (for example, if you try to grind the primary angle on them with a crystolon stone, the edge will crumble at later steps. Diamonds are completely out of the question. For chisels, that's a pain, because you are taking the hardest thing you can find and then restricting yourself to slower stones - which means users need to be able to avoid any kind of damage other than regular wear.).

As far as razors go, I would presume that may be possible with razors, too - that some razors will prefer a more gentle groove. I never got on with the nagura, though it's the same idea - the truly genuine asano naguras have gotten very expensive, and there seem to be tons of them popping up (just like there are all of the sudden a lot of vintage fender guitars - the reality is that a lot of those guitars are fakes).

For razors, a good quality suita stone is also an acceptable pre-polisher. I like those for tools and have learned to appreciate them for razors. They don't need to be big. A $100 175x65mm stone is the same as one 35mm longer, 15 wider and twice as thick, except the large stone will be $500. They get you on the doorstep of a finisher, and take away the need for the finisher to be fast. And they aren't harsh - they're reasonably fast, but mellow at the same time.

As for all of them, my razors never see anything but tomonagura and clear water on a finish stone after they're set up. Or if used on an ark stone, just the arkansas stone itself. Everything before that is just to set up a razor that's new or that's been set up incorrectly before. After getting hyped up on stones, I asked a guy who has been shaving for 40 years what he's done to keep his razor in shape, and he said horse leather and the occasional touch up on a black arkansas stone that hasn't been lapped in decades ("once in a great while" is what he described for honing. Same razor for all 40 years).

I'm not really making a point here, I know. If i was, it would be that there is no one way. I would say beware of dealers who mark up plain stones 3x and beware of $200 sets of naguras that look brand new. The coarser sets of naguras can be scratchy, as can the fraudulently marked finer ones. Beware also of someone who tells you that you need those naguras and a super-quality finish stone. You need a hard one that's fine and not scratchy in that case. If the naguras are doing the heavy lifting, then chasing after the unicorn stone that is super fine and fast cutting and mellow (which is a high cost proposition) is sort of like wearing belt and suspenders.

Hi all,
Recently I bought Ozuku stone. I tried it after Naniva SS 8k and 10k, on my test razor, was playing both with naguras progression, tomo (which is diamond plate in my case) and clean water only.. But I can not say I enjoyed the result at the end unfortunately. The edge of the razor looked more satin than mirror and shaving was not that clean and smooth. HHT was ok after the strop but the shaving and the satin edge disappointed me. Something inside me is telling me that razor could be sharper after Naniva SS 8k-10k.. I understand that each natural stone is waiting for the correct approach and many-many tries, but maybe someone could share with experience and give me a guidance and advance how would be better to proceed...