Thread: Morihei – Japanese Hones In Tokyo

Originally Posted by riooso

Do you think a green hued Maruichi "Maruka" (Nakayama Asagi) might come close?


Richard

it is very close.

Hi, a quick and maybe stupid question

Is the level of finishing ( with narutaki, ohira, shobudani, nakayama, ohzoku, ... ) more linked to personal taste/tecnique rather than the stone itself?

For example i really like a lot the level of finishing of narutaki, i find also it is very easy to achieve amazing edge with it, but then again this could be related to my tecnique.

It's more to do with the individual stone rather than the name of the mine they came from. The mine is no guarantee of the quality. You can get rubbish Nakayama stones as well as great ones.

Well one week later I was back at Morihei to show him a couple of my hones. I took my suita and my coticule. I asked him what he thought of my suita and he asked if he could hone a bit on it. He moistened the surface of the hone and started rubbing it to feel the surface of the hone. He looked at it closely and said, this is an Ohira. Which of course it was. How he knew, I'll never know, but if he says it is something then he will be right about it 99% of the time, I am sure.

Anyway, he took out a plane that he must use to test hones. It was odd; he would go back and forth a few times and then start at the top doing small back tracking back and forth honing, leaving a trail of dark metal particles. He would then see how they moved when he touched them with a wet finger tip. All the while explaining about characteristics of the hone. It turned out that he said it was a softerhone but at very fine and high quality one. He asked if I was satisfied with it, which I am, and went to get a hone out of the cabinet.

What he brought me to look at wasn't very much to look at. He said this is a very rare Ozuku suita that has no su. If you feel it and hone with it it feels rough. But that is not the outcome. It is a very hard and very fine hone that can be mistaken if not tested. He took the same plane and did the same sort of trail leaving honing and said look how much finer this one is. But feel the surface. I did and it did feel like it was a lower grit. My suita is rated at #36000. And this other hone he had out was even finer. Even I could see what he was talking about.

He said that the Ozuku suita are all but gone, yet he has about 50 of them as he saw and knew their value when he first got ahold of one. After that, aquisition disorder kicked in and he had to have as many as he could get. I had to chuckle and say I know how that goes.

He had also mentioned that he gets emails from people saying that they have a Nakayama Maruichi Maruka for razor use only hone and that they want a harder hone than what they have. He looked at me and asked if I know how many different types/layers of Nakayama there were. I had no idea so he brought out a number of trays with hones of all size and colour and said when we got a Nakayama that had chracteristics that were unlike ones we had in the past we added a sample to our collection. They have a sample of probably every single type of Nakayama that came out of the mine. He said a few are on loan so there are some missing but her they are. Take a look for yourself.




Needless to say they were of all levels of hardness and for some of those emails that said they wanted a harder hone, it would be impossible to gauge without handling the hone in person.

He was also perplexed as to why all of the razor guys wanted hard hones. I guessed that people want to hone with nagura and that a harder hone is better than a soft one for that type of honing. He was also perplexed as to why people only consider Nakayama to be the best when there was so many better options, granted Nakayama's can be premium stones. I said it is probably propaganda from a certain person in Kyoto. And we left it at that.

Just before I left I saw a Nakayama Nashiji hone that was only 1.5 inches wide by about 8 inches long. I said this is an odd size to see. I like the narrower hones and would love to see more if you have them. He said he did but it would have to wait until next time, as I had to get back to work. Not something I wanted to do as I had/have an urgent translation to complete before the end of the week. Ohh well I had my fun and had my hone assesed and pronounced excellent but with the knowledge that there were finer hones out there.

I would go there a few times a week, except he seems so busy and I don't want to impose. But I will probably go once a week and add to my knowledge each time I visit.


As I have met and interacted with Mr. Morihei a couple of times now, I can see that he is a very nice man, and one to go out of his way to accomodate his clients. Yet I hope that my posts here are not causing people to send him a bunch of questions that aren't well thought out and just waste his time. He doesn't speak English and any emails he replies to are translated by a family member who does so after they get home from their full time job. I would say if you contact him have some specific needs ready and explained so that he knows how to proceed. He doesn't hone razors but is a master of his craft and that is hones. So if you say what kind of steel you are going to hone and how hard the steel is. Whether it is stainless or carbon he will better be able to serve you.

I don't even know where to find the contact information for Morihei, but I am enjoying reading all this, and that is enough for me. Thanks Seth!

Seth, you are the man. Learn as much as you possibly can from him so YOU can answer our silly questions

Great post! Keep 'em coming!

Originally Posted by nubskillz

Seth, you are the man. Learn as much as you possibly can from him so YOU can answer our silly questions

Ha Ha Ha, I was going to say 'stupid questions' but changed it to 'well thought out'. I am sure we are all guilty of asking a dumb question, and had we thought a moment longer perhaps we might make more sense when we do ask a question. I know I have asked a million stupid questions when visiting other knife shops and talking to proprietors about razors and hones. But the least we can do is try.

And I of course will answer as much as I can, and hope others who have knowledge to share will chime in too. It is a pitty so much was lost when O_S left, like a thief in the night, deleteing all of the threads and posts he had a hand in.

sorry for asking, but how can you determine the grit of your suita?

There is a simple method to compare the finesse of two hones?

Thanks Seth, very much, for taking the time to share this. I am always learning here and this thread of yours was superb timing as I am working with a gentleman right now arranging for the purchase of a Japanese hone.