Hey guys, I wanted to understand nagura's a bit better as I'm often left guessing whenever I come across a honing video. Correct me if I'm wrong but assuming one has a base stone of a certain hardness, using a nagura that is softer than the base hone would impart the honing properties of the nagura onto the base stone.

In a second scenario, one could have a base stone that is softer than the nagura/slurry stone and the nagura in that case would be used to break down the base stone. That slurry would be primarily comprised of the base stone itself.

I recently aquired an escher which included a slurry stone. It seems like the slurry stone is softer as the slurry left on the stone appears to match the color of the slurry stone. In this case, wouldn't I get the same result by using the same slurry stone and rubbing it on a hard ark or a piece of granite or glass or whatever? I guess what I'm asking is if the slurry stone isn't cut from the same escher then whats the benefit of using an unknown slurry stone on an escher? To me it seems logical that there wouldn't be any point in using that setup. I think I would be better off using a diamond nagura. Is that correct?

Then I have a coticule which to me is pretty soft. The slurry stone that it came with is hard as hell so I know the slurry being produced with that combo is coming off the coticule.

I like the idea of honing off slurry and wanted to start collecting stones that will allow me to do this but I have no idea if I could simply get myself a big ass hunk of a SB Ark for example, and a set of Jap naguras and do a progression. Does the base stone matter after a certain level of hardness? Assuming that the base hone you're using is harder than anything you would ever use to slurry, would there be a difference between using nagura on a very hard JNAT or an Ark?

Sorry for my noobness. I know I'm kinda all over the place with this post :-)