Thread: Suita Renge dry and wet close-ups

A few months back, member Memorael posted photos of a Suita stone with intense renge figuring. At the time, I didn't know what renge were. Thanks to the generosity of Memorael, I now own that stone. It's my first and only Suita stone, as a bonus. To top it off, it is a wonderful finisher with a classic JNat feel.

Now I see first hand up-close what renge figuring looks like, and it's so pretty I wanted to share with other JNat stone hounds such as myself. The stone is palm-sized (about 5" X 2"), and while the figure shows when dry, the shades of color and depth aren't apparent. But when wet, the figure just pops out all over the entire surface, with so many shades of color! I don't have the skills to really capture in photos the 3-D layered aspect of the figure when wet, but I tried. In person, it looks like swirly flecks of pink, purple, and red suspended in oil above the surface, with veins of figure running on the surface itself underneath. It almost seems like if I shook the stone hard , the pattern would change while I watched. I just love it, haven't seen anything like it before in person.

Suita Renge, Dry:



The same Suita Renge, when Wet:

Wow, pretty indeed! Send it this way, I want to play with a pretty lady like that!

Very active. Must be fast. Seems to have a touch of yake also

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Very active. Must be fast. Seems to have a touch of yake also

Yes, it is very fast. But it's such a hard stone, it's also quite fine. Here is one more zoomed photo of the center of the stone, pretty wild looking:

Tim ,
I am curious how does it compare as finisher to your Nakayamas?

My post was really just to share the beauty of the stone. I'm honestly still just learning it at this point. I was so surprised by the colorful figure that popped out all over the first time I wet it with water, I had to take photos and post them.

It generally takes me a few months to start to understand a particular Japanese stone - slowly accounting for my own shortcomings to reveal the actual characteristics of the stone itself. My skills lag well behind the potential of my stones.

On first impression alone, I don't know it's real capability. It seems to be a finisher, and very fast. Very hard, and acoustically more "noisy" than, say, a Kiita, with plain water, and not as silky in feel. Since this is my first Suita, and all I have to compare it to are the few Nakayamas I own, it's a tough call because I've spent so much more time with the Nakayamas.

i like it and sounds like you're gonna have fun with it