Thread: Japanese Natural or just old stained synthetic?

The color in the picture is darker than when looking with the naked eye. It is quite a bit whiter. Good luck with the edge.

I have what appears to be such a stone and it's fairly soft, seems to be a fine grit sandstone. The 'grit' is finer than 1000 on mine, but not much, I'd estimate 1500-2000. It also shows a few small pits, where inclusions were I believe. To the best of my knowledge, MY stone is unsuitable for razors. I use it as a pre-sharpening clean up stone, for removing rust and grime from the blade flats of vintage knives. I wouldn't put any edge at all on it, past honing out a significant nick.

Because it doesn't make a slurry (mine doesn't) I've had to struggle to give the rock a job, and the inclusions havn't helped any. There is an east german rock that resembles it, in color and type, but slightly finer and MUCH purer grain and consistency. NO inclusions to mention. It does the jobs well this rock does poorly, even though it's smaller. You might see if you can track one down, they're uncommon but not terribly expensive.

If yours is the same sort of rock as mine, cutting it is risky. sandstone isn't very dense, and it may split.