Thread: The REAL holy grail of hones?

Here's one vendor that I found when I was looking them over.

Tools for Working Wood

Chocera and Japanese Natural Stones .... - Foodie Forums

There's a guy in there that mentions having the Chocera hones, but not the 10k. Some of the other guys talk about other people's experiences and none seem to find it outstandingly better than the alternatives.

Then again, a 10k hone is really unlikely to be the holy grail.

Alex Gilmore's collection of natural finishing stones is extremely impressive and his experience is that the good Nakayama stones can be in the 40k to 45k range: http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...-nakayama.html

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Chocera and Japanese Natural Stones .... - Foodie Forums

There's a guy in there that mentions having the Chocera hones, but not the 10k. Some of the other guys talk about other people's experiences and none seem to find it outstandingly better than the alternatives.

Then again, a 10k hone is really unlikely to be the holy grail.

Alex Gilmore's collection of natural finishing stones is extremely impressive and his experience is that the good Nakayama stones can be in the 40k to 45k range: http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...-nakayama.html

Well from what I have read the 10k Chosera is in another league from the lower grit ones. Also 40-45k range stones seem to be overkill when everyone complains that even the edge from a 30k Shapton is "too sharp". But here is another review from Foodie Forums:

"Ah, now the 10k Naniwa Chocera. I'll have to say at the outset that I was not expecting it to beat the 12k Superstone. In fact, I was almost hoping it wouldn't as this is an expensive stone. (Again, I'll leave the pricing issues to Sakeen7).

The stone has a 'presence'. As you unwrap it from it's golden colored cloth, ad special box, you feel like this shoud be somethinng special. So is this hype and all this air of sword polishing just a slick sales job for an expensive stone? It was time to find out.

It has a creamy feel to it more than the 10k or 12k superstones dry. It is not a particularly thirsty stone with minimum bubbling. After about 5 minutes, no bubbles. It took little effort to keep it wet. The knives we tried on it were the full mix, some with a previous 10k or 12k superstone edge and some with whatever edge it had. All were exceedingly sharp, most especially after the 12k Naniwa superstone edges. There were single and double beveled knives, traditional and Western, powdered steels, blue and white carbon steels - pretty much a mix of high end knives - Carter, Suisin. Blazen, Itou, etc etc as you can see in the pictures. Pettys, debas, gyutos, etc.

EVERY SINGLE one of the knives gave absolutely amazing edges with minimal effort.

The 10k Chocera has lots of abrasive and quickly puts an amazng edge on a knife - all kinds of knives. Very good edges became exquisitely good edges and exquisite edges became ... better. I'm running low on superlatives. After every knife was checked before and after sharpeninng by both of us, the conversation degenerated into successive exclamations of amazement.

I do have to make one off topic comment. No efforts were made during the entire evening at burr removal. We both would feel edges and barely detect burr or agree that we were just on the cusp of producing a burr. This was a treat to work with someone who appreciated the waste of effort to produce large burrs and then remove it.

Now I also looked at a couple of these edges with an inspection scope. These were excellent hand sharpened edges, but you could see convexing of the edges and incomplete scratch removal and less than precise bevels. Yet the edges were amazing. Now this 10k Chocera doesn't have a base so it is a perfect candidate to use as a stone in my Gizmo. I have a feeliing that there is even more capability to squeeze out of this stone.

The stone is almost eerily silent. You have good feedback, minimal mud buildup. It is further improved by lightly touching it up with the 8k DMT plate. I captured a minute amount of swarf to use on paper later.

The stone is very accomodating to hand sharpening on a wide vaiety of steels - in fact all of them. It seems to just have the amazing ability to make everything it touched MUCH sharper. QUICKLY. Just a few strokes and you touch the edge and ooooh! and a big smile. ALL of the edges it produced gave me pause and a double take as to just how sharp it is. It's the nicest stone I've ever used. Period. For a stone addict this is pure heroin.

Now how the edge is improved further with submicron pastes remains to be seen, but I can easily say that using a Chromium leather strop just seemed like it would be a step back. I really can't imagine why you would need a sharper edge than what we produced in a kitchen.

We tried doing some veggies - a yellow bell pepper and some baby carrots. One usuba on its own weight made see through carrot slices in a half inch long stroke. Even light weight knives like the carter nakiri went through carrots on a short push cut on its own weight. Supelative edges - all of them."

P.S. I forget where exactly I saw it and am still looking but one review said that he tried it alongside many other stones including naturals and a 16k Shapton and it IMPROVED the edge from the Shapton 16k and others. Now from what a lot of guys here think of the 16k Shapton, it seems to me that this stone should maybe get some more thought.

I just wanted to add a minor point:
Traditional Japanese sword sharpening is done with the Nakayama as the final polishing stone.
And from what So told me, no stone is higher regarded.

Tools for working wood says they are synthetic.

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

This is accurate. The Nakayama hones are the most highly sought after hones in the world. Narutaki, Suita and so on don't even compare.

Maybe the Naniwa is the holy grail of synthetic stones

Let's remember that Nakayama, and Narutaki are mines. Suita is a stratum. Nakayama Suita is one possibility of a single mine-strata specific stone.

fwiw nihonto usually receive their finish polish with Narutaki stones

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

Actually I made a slight error in that post because Narutaki hones are mined from the Nakayama quarry. But none the less, Narutaki hones do not get as high in grit as the Nakayama hones with the Maruichi label.

We're not talking about the holy grail of sword finishing hones, but razor finishing hones.

regardless of what you are discussing Narutaki is a mine separate from Nakayama, therefore narutaki are not mined from nakayama. both mines dug into the same mountain on the same side into the same geologic structure so they can have very very similar products

Originally Posted by Philadelph

Also 40-45k range stones seem to be overkill when everyone complains that even the edge from a 30k Shapton is "too sharp".

Apples and oranges, my friend. A synthetic stone puts a different edge on a blade than a natural stone, maybe 30k synthetic is unpleasant but 40k+ natural is wonderful.

Then again, I don't have shaptons to compare to, so I'll take your word that the 30k is superfluous.

I guess I just have a hard time believing that a 10k hone could ever achieve the smoothness that a finer natural stone could because there will always be 10k grit in the slurry, no matter how fine some of the particles become.

With the reviews, it's VERY tempting to try that stone. However, I share Russel's skepticism. Chefs are slicing through carrots and other foods, none of which can say "ouch" or get razor burn.

The theoretical merit the reviews of that stone seem to tout which intrigues me is the idea that in theory, this stone could act as both a finisher and polisher in one stone. Leaving the 8,000 grit range and finishing completely on this stone. I find that interesting but I don't have the money to play product reviewer for it. If I DID have the money, I think I'd spring for it and give it a shot just for fun and experimentation. Heck, a guy could always sell this stone on Ebay as I'm sure it holds its value well and would be snatched up in a heartbeat by chefs or woodworkers. So....buy it, try it out and if it doesn't work sell it on Ebay for maybe $40 less than you paid for it? It might be worth the risk.

Chris L