The Aoto Thread

[Buddel]

I´m also using the Aoto now since one year. I bought mine here:
Japanese Natural Waterstone Aoto | DICK GmbH - Fine Tools

I highly recommend this stone in the range from 1000 - 2500 grit. With slurry it is more aggressive, then use it more and more only with water, to go finer. So you can use only this stone before you must go to a 6000 grit stone. The stone is soft and must be flatten relatively often, but it gives a very good feedback for the sharpener and works quite fast. For me a best buy.

[sparq]

I´m also using the Aoto now since one year. I bought mine here:
Japanese Natural Waterstone Aoto | DICK GmbH - Fine Tools

I highly recommend this stone in the range from 1000 - 2500 grit. With slurry it is more aggressive, then use it more and more only with water, to go finer. So you can use only this stone before you must go to a 6000 grit stone. The stone is soft and must be flatten relatively often, but it gives a very good feedback for the sharpener and works quite fast. For me a best buy.

Thank you for rubbing it in!

[sparq]

Close-up of my aoto. This is what it looks like after lapping and honing (several dozens of laps). To me, it feels more like a clump of mud than a stone.

[hi_bud_gl]

talk to seller he may take it back?

[holli4pirating]

I got mine. It came from 330. It looks like it may have a crack or red inclusion that runs aloung it length wise about in the middle or the stone. I can't tell if it runs through the whole stone, but it looks like it does. All faces of my stone were covered in what looked like saw marks; lots of ridges. They came out very quickly with a DMT 6c - I mean maybe 1 minute on one of the larger faces. Slurry generated was quite dark, and the stone looks beautiful on the lapped face - it is not a flat color like my Dragon's Tongue and has much larger patterns than a BBW. I have not lapped the other face, and I've not taken a razor to her, but it looks like I lucked out and got a winner.

[holli4pirating]

Ok, I've done a little bit of messing around on my Aoto, so I'll share my very preliminary thoughs.

I took Wostenholm that I got off ebay with a chip in the middle of the razor. I picked this one because I know it's good steel, but if I did any damage, it wouldn't matter since it's already chipped.

I started off on a freshly lapped surface and ran the razor over it in normal x strokes to see how it felt. Pretty smooth. I then started doing some circles with a "firm" stroke (to use some language I picked up from Lynn today) and found that yes, the hone will generate some slurry when being used with a firm stroke. During this initial stage, I found that the surface was drying out relatively quickly. I'm not sure if this was because I was pushing water off the edge or because the hone was absorbing the water (perhaps more use will tell...). So, as I added water to keep the surface nice and wet, I found that the slurry tended to stay pretty thin. That was nice, because it means that, under "normal" use, I can maintain a light slurry pretty easily. I checked the scratch pattern on the razor, and it looked pretty nice - nothing too deep, but it was clear that metal was being removed.

I then worked up a slurry by rubbing the stone with my pocket sized Spiderco Medium. When I had a bit of a slurry going, I went back to firm circles and X's to see what she did. The thick slurry stayed pretty thick, even as I slowly added water to the hone, so I know that the surface was breaking down as I was going along. I could smell metal, but was unable to tell what was slurry and what was metal on the hone. I thought things were going nicely, but then I spotted some grooves on the surface of the hone. My first thought was that I had not totally lapped out the grooves that came on the stone, so I pulled out the same DMT and refreshed. I then went back with the spyderco med and worked up a slurry and did some firm circles again. Again, after a while, I found grooves in the hone.

Now, I'm not sure whether the grooves were a product of circles with a firm hand or whether the stone was just wearing unevenly, so I'm not going to jump to any conclusions. I can say that this has never happened to me before, but I've also never used such a soft hone. So, this is something I need to experiment with.

But, I thought to myself, maybe I'll not be able to use this hone with pressure, so let's see what it does with just a light stroke. Also, around now, the bevel was starting to form, but not very well. I'm not sure if that was because of the shape the edge was in when I started or the unevenness forming on the face of the hone, but it did tell me that this thing was moving some metal.

So my next step was to figure out what I could do with no pressure.

In order to re-normalize my edge, I pulled out my DMT6c and did a bunch of circles on both sides of the razor. I then tested out a spot on the edge and found the normal stickyness one would expect off a DMTC. That would serve as my reference.

I took the razor back to the Aoto with just water and a light stroke. I did 80 quick circles on each side and then 20 normal x strokes. Over this time, I did find that a light slurry was forming, but not much at all. I then went to test my reference spot of the razor by seeing what it would do to arm hair, and it was cutting quite cleanly.

So here are my thoughs about my Aoto thus far
- I need to see if using pressure actually causes the hone to wear unevenly or if that is due to my use of circles. To test this out, I will do firm strokes straight across the hone (no x movement) to see if uneven wear develops. If there is uneven wear, then it seems to me the hone wears unevenly. If there is no uneven wear, then I would guess it is the circles.
-This thing can remove some metal. At best, it could be used as a bevel setter for edges that need minimal work (possibly replacing my King 1k). At worst, it will be quite useful at removing scratch marks from a coarser, more aggressive hone (like my Norton 1k).
-This razor should fit in nicely between my bevel setter and a med/fine hone, such as my Dragon's Tongue or my BBW.
-So far, I like this hone. It removes metal, it leaves a decent polish, and it provides good feedback. Since the hone is softer, you can really feel the edge start to bite into the hone as it becomes keen. That is a very useful sign, because it tells you it's probably time to go up to the next stone before you even check the edge with a standard test.

[sparq]

Thank you Holli. Your aoto must be coming from the same batch as mine. Watch for the uneven wear. It feels like one side of my stone is even softer that the other one.

Here is a picture of an edge with chips that was posted to another thread also.

[sparq]

talk to seller he may take it back?

The seller keeps telling me that I have no idea how natural hones work and I am seeing "deep scratches caused by this coarse stone". Deep scratch my ar*e...

[holli4pirating]

I've been playing with my Aoto a bit more, so I have more to report. I've just taken 9 razors from my Norton 1k to the Aoto. Using a new method I've recently learned, I did 40 circles with a firm stroke per side, followed by 10 firm X stokes. I didn't use any slurry, and I kept adding water as it was pushed off/absorbed into the stone. The razors wer from various Sheffield and German makers.

All of the bevels are much, much more polished than before I started, and they are all cutting arm hair much easier; feels something like around a 4k range to my untrained senses. The hone only wore a little unevenly; I could barely feel it from the feedback. I've not checked for dishing, but I'd guess there must be a bit because a very light slurry did form. I think in the future, I'll do a quick refresh after every 4 or 5 blades, juts to keep things in tip top shape.

And now we come to what I really like about this hone - the feedback is awesome. You can really feel the edge start to bite into the hone as she becomes keen. It is very noticable and a great sign that you're ready to stop your circles and give a few X passes to even things up.

I'm really liking my Aoto; now I just need to figure out what to go to next. Tonight, I'm going to play with a synthetic nagura on my Dragon's Tongue followed by (maybe the coti and then) my Asagi.

[joke1176]

... And now we come to what I really like about this hone - the feedback is awesome. You can really feel the edge start to bite into the hone as she becomes keen. It is very noticable and a great sign that you're ready to stop your circles and give a few X passes to even things up.

I'm really liking my Aoto; now I just need to figure out what to go to next...

I'm glad it's working out for ya, they really do have a nice feel to them.