Thread: Japanese Natural or just old stained synthetic?

Hi everyone,

Yet another stone question... I posted something about this one a while ago, but only included scans of the box (with the name "White Stone - Deluxe Hone)as I had no camera.

I am wondering if this stone is a japanese natural or a rather old and stained synthetic. Having thus far only handled heavy duty carborundum stones for chippy chisels, I'm not clued up on the finer stones. The lapped surface is fairly uniformly creamy, but with a few areas of red/pink. The back and sides are all square (which says synthetic to my novice mind), but stained/darker.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
J.

Edit: Apologies for the deplorable image quality. Best I could do with a mighty 3 kilopixel webcam

It kind of looks like the white binsui Jnat I just got in the mail today, it is supposed to be around 1000 grit, and it is squared up like the one you show. I am in no way even close to knowing what I am talking about with Jnats though. Maybe I can take a picture of mine and post it for comparison. I was hoping to use mine for bevel setting but it looks like it might be a little rough for razors, i have yet to try it on a razor though. I did make about 5 laps with my pocketknife and the slurry worked up very easily. 330mate has red or white binsui's listed in his ebay store you could check there for more info and see if his photos look like your stone.

Send kevint a PM. He is very knowledgeable on most of the obscure j-nats IMO.

The size of the hone suggests to me that it could be a natural hone. If you make a synthetic hone of that hight, with that much material you could make three thinner hones. But if you are shaping natural rock then bigger can mean less work, you don't have to cut it into three pieces.

Alrighty,

With the input of the forum and after closer inspection, I'm now relatively convinced that it is indeed natural. the edges show faint vertical grooves that are suggestive of saw marks, and some of the small cracks on the corners look like they would be hard to make by accidentally bumping it against something. That and the fact that it was in the original box and in good condition, which probably means that whoever had it took good care of it, and was unlikely to have got the surfaces this dirty.

Now to work out what approx grit it might be A bit difficult without a bevel setter to get started on the blade (Still in the mail). Is there a way that someone can suggest to get a rough estimate on the grit?

Thanks again for all the input

Not a chance. Especially since with Japanese naturals, since they don't really fir the frit rating system.

The only way to figure it out is to try and see how it reacts. And even that will only give you an idea. If you really want to know, the only way is to send it to an expert like So Yamashita for appraisal. He or his father will probably be able to say what it is, where it comes from and when it was mined.

Of course, So is already overworked so that is probably not a realistic option. and it doesn't really matter from a practical perspective.
Give it a try and see where it will fit in your honing setup.