Thread: finishing with japanese naturals - what's your way?

Hey guys, I've just recently entered the world of japanese naturals - starting with a nakayama suita (with lots of nashiji) and I'm also going to be trying out a nakayama namito/tomae.

So, my main question is about exactly what you guys do at the end. How many laps do you do on your j-nat finishers? Do you do a progression from thick slurry, light slurry, to clear water? And if so, how many laps on each? I also know that the abrasive particles (on some? all?) can get ground down finer as you hoen, though I don't quite know how to account for that in my sequence/progression.

And then what do you do after the final clear-water polishing stage? Do you use a smoother, like CrOx or CeOx? (And if so how many laps?) And then what stropping do you do? Standard fabric and leather 25-50+ laps each? One expert advised me *not* to strop after finishing with a good j-nat, because it "erases the stone's signature" - he actually advised taking some (dry) slurry from the stone and "stropping" on your hand.

Also, while I know that the ideal would be to achieve the desired sharpness without resorting to any sharpening pastes, I'm wondering if anyone has had any success working any diamond pastes into a sequence with any good j-nat finishers. I saw on a couple of threads that you can take something like CrOx or CeOx and put it on the hone (presumably with water, not oil) - but I couldn't find any details on exactly how that works and people's experiences with it.

At the risk of overloading with questions, I'm also curious of what people are "jumping" from before their toishi - currently I'm moving to my suita (with slurry) from a BBW and coticule progressively-thinning=slurry progression, which seems to be working well.

Cheers all.