Thread: New Japanese Stone

Is that your yellow pine workbench top underneath?

I have found Ohira Suita to make a very good shaving, face friendly edge. Often better than N_yama Tomae which I have experienced to both be trumped by Escher. It's not all about the finest grit. You must have a certain range of hardness; sometimes as has been my limited experience the tomae starta is a bit soft for the finish of straight razor. I would of course be delighted to hear differently

Perhaps that is only true for escher edges prepped on Tomae; I cannot say.

Nope, not my bench. I'm not at home right now. I'm in Afghanistan. I shaved after sharpening with the new stone and it shaved well. However, only slightly sharper than my Ohira Suita. The Ohira I use for my razors is about as good as you can get with an Ohira. I would guesstimate it to be between 20,000 to 25,000 grit. The Tomae is definately finer, probably over 30,000 grit and definately an improvement, but after a 20,000 grit stone its hard to have a drastic improvement. I'll have to try it on my Pierre Thiers when I get home to see if it sharpens old steel differently, but an awesome stone none the less.

Originally Posted by joes978

Nope, not my bench. I'm not at home right now. I'm in Afghanistan. I shaved after sharpening with the new stone and it shaved well. However, only slightly sharper than my Ohira Suita. The Ohira I use for my razors is about as good as you can get with an Ohira. I would guesstimate it to be between 20,000 to 25,000 grit. The Tomae is definately finer, probably over 30,000 grit and definately an improvement, but after a 20,000 grit stone its hard to have a drastic improvement. I'll have to try it on my Pierre Thiers when I get home to see if it sharpens old steel differently, but an awesome stone none the less.

Congratulations. have fun using it.

I just used it with a light slurry, and it put a horrible edge on the razor. Has anyone had this experience before? I know this stone is a little harder to use than a softer stone, but should it go backwards with a slurry?

Originally Posted by joes978

I just used it with a light slurry, and it put a horrible edge on the razor. Has anyone had this experience before? I know this stone is a little harder to use than a softer stone, but should it go backwards with a slurry?

Joe, try it with water only or with a diluted slurry. I've no experience with J-Nats at all. Many members do. I do have a lot of experience with slurry on coticules, blues , thuringans, Scots hones. If it went backwards with heavy slurry try diluting it. If that doesn't improve it drop back to your sharpening stone and get the edge keen again. Then try your nakayama with water only.

Originally Posted by joes978

I just used it with a light slurry, and it put a horrible edge on the razor. Has anyone had this experience before? I know this stone is a little harder to use than a softer stone, but should it go backwards with a slurry?

How many laps did you do?
If the stone is slow it can take some time to get the edge where you want it.
Also try with no slurry and see how it goes. This is an unique stone and you will have to spend some time with it to learn how to use it properly.
Good luck.

Originally Posted by joes978

I just used it with a light slurry, and it put a horrible edge on the razor. Has anyone had this experience before? I know this stone is a little harder to use than a softer stone, but should it go backwards with a slurry?

Every stone will take time to learn it. Be patient and take your time.Try different ways with slurry ,without slurry etc and see what happens. when you tired send some senior member for testing.

I just resharpened the razor from bevel setting all the way up to finishing. After my Suita, I tested the razor and it shaved my arm hair very smooth with no effort at all, so then I did 20 laps with no slurry on the Nakayama Tomae and retested and it got worse. It grabbed arm hair and required a little force to shave. So I went back to the Suita with another 20 laps and it was back to smooth and effortless. Could my Ohira Suita really be better than a Maruka Nakyama Tomae? From what I've heard, thats not possible. Is there something differnt I have to do with a Tomae?

This is going to sound like blasphemy maybe, but did you lap the surface?
You'll lose the kanji but you'll know that you have a clean and smooth honing surface.

Take a picture of the kenji first