Thread: Shoobie Doobie Asagi

THAT not my intention,I didnt even see the first post just the one that said one stone looked softer than the other,and thats it,I wasnt making fun of anyone,it just sounded funny-Griz

Bit of an update: I accidentally made a slight scratch in my Nakayama (super shallow) & had to re-lap it. I noticed the slurry was back to being a more orange color. Just for fun, I tried the Iwasaki method w/ it again (even using my D8C for slurry). I took into account what Maxim has said about the softer stones & gave it much longer. Pretty decent edge--probably should have given it 2 rounds of slurry as the razor was pretty dull). Probably not Shoobie Doobie territory, but certainly on par w/ a coticule or Thurry edge, I would guess. I'm still definitely going to purchase the Shoubudani he was nice enough to hold for me when I get paid for doing all these fireworks shows (I'm a pyrotechnician) I've been swamped with for the last almost 2 months, but the stone might actually be working again now (must have lapped into a bad layer or something).

Maxim: if you see this, I'm definitely going to buy that stone from you the split second I get paid & I thank you profusely for your patience!

I just wanted to let you know, as of now I am a part of the Shoubu-Legion!
Shall the Shoubudani rise.

Recently I was in the market for another japanese natural. I do not know why, though.
My j-nat setup until recently has been:

1. medium soft Kiita (probably something suita) for my kitchen knives.
   Very nice, makes for perfect slicing edges
2. blue-greenish Oohira, slightly harder (but still in the softer region). I would guess 8-9.000 JIS
3. Nakayama Kiita Nashiji, Maruka and Maruichi, as well as Nihon Kamisori stamp. Quite hard, quite slow, extremely fine though. Gives simply outstanding shaves.
4. several smaller pieces that serve as Nagura, Uchigomori, and a couple of Suita.

I was contacting Maksim over at JNS and it was just too tempting.
So instead of a small Ozuku I bit the bullet for a huge Shoubudani Asagi.
I was not expecting a stone that could match my beloved Nakayama.
It is a true Nakayama, after all.

But the moment I got the stone and tried it, I fell in love.
Don´t get me wrong, both the Nakayama and the Shoubu shine at being a finisher for razors.
The Shoubu Asagi is yet harder (I would rate it hard) and quicker at that!
At least that is what I believe so far.

I seldomly use the one-stone method, but a variation of it.
I start with a Tsushima Nagura Slurry on my Ohira for setting a bevel that needs little resetting.
When I´m satisfied I switch to the Shoubudani with Mejiro Slurry. Sometimes I add the Tomonagura in between the next step.
Then I take out my Naniwa Super 10.000. With a light slurry, raised by a DMT card or a ~12.000 Mesh Micromesh paper.
This really gets the bevel shiny. Perfect mirror.
The edge is quite keen then, and ready for shaving.
This is the time for the Shoubudani to do it´s work.

The Shoubudani (mine at least) does not diminish the outstanding mirror (even under high magnification),
but smoothens the edge even further to the point of awesomness.

The shaves from the Shoubudani are outstanding. Smooth and keen!
Maybe (splitting hairs here) I would give the Shoubudani edge a bit more keenness
whereas the Nakayama has a bit more smoothness.
But then again, the varaince produced within two sets of razors sharpened on one of these stones
would be far greater than the difference I just described.

Maybe I will make a picture of my current j-nat collection soon.
I am really, really wondering about the Ohzukus from Maksim.
His ultra-hard 5++ Ohzukus must be wonderfull. Maybe another time I will not be able to withstand

But for now I am extemely delighted with my Shoubu.
Ah, and btw. I have not yet lapped it. I want to savour the stamp a little further.
But I gave it a good polish with my Nagura, Mejiro and Tomo.
The stone quickly took on a good mirror

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

I just wanted to let you know, as of now I am a part of the Shoubu-Legion!
Shall the Shoubudani rise.

Recently I was in the market for another japanese natural. I do not know why, though.
My j-nat setup until recently has been:

1. medium soft Kiita (probably something suita) for my kitchen knives.
   Very nice, makes for perfect slicing edges
2. blue-greenish Oohira, slightly harder (but still in the softer region). I would guess 8-9.000 JIS
3. Nakayama Kiita Nashiji, Maruka and Maruichi, as well as Nihon Kamisori stamp. Quite hard, quite slow, extremely fine though. Gives simply outstanding shaves.
4. several smaller pieces that serve as Nagura, Uchigomori, and a couple of Suita.

I was contacting Maksim over at JNS and it was just too tempting.
So instead of a small Ozuku I bit the bullet for a huge Shoubudani Asagi.
I was not expecting a stone that could match my beloved Nakayama.
It is a true Nakayama, after all.

But the moment I got the stone and tried it, I fell in love.
Don´t get me wrong, both the Nakayama and the Shoubu shine at being a finisher for razors.
The Shoubu Asagi is yet harder (I would rate it hard) and quicker at that!
At least that is what I believe so far.

I seldomly use the one-stone method, but a variation of it.
I start with a Tsushima Nagura Slurry on my Ohira for setting a bevel that needs little resetting.
When I´m satisfied I switch to the Shoubudani with Mejiro Slurry. Sometimes I add the Tomonagura in between the next step.
Then I take out my Naniwa Super 10.000. With a light slurry, raised by a DMT card or a ~12.000 Mesh Micromesh paper.
This really gets the bevel shiny. Perfect mirror.
The edge is quite keen then, and ready for shaving.
This is the time for the Shoubudani to do it´s work.

The Shoubudani (mine at least) does not diminish the outstanding mirror (even under high magnification),
but smoothens the edge even further to the point of awesomness.

The shaves from the Shoubudani are outstanding. Smooth and keen!
Maybe (splitting hairs here) I would give the Shoubudani edge a bit more keenness
whereas the Nakayama has a bit more smoothness.
But then again, the varaince produced within two sets of razors sharpened on one of these stones
would be far greater than the difference I just described.

Maybe I will make a picture of my current j-nat collection soon.
I am really, really wondering about the Ohzukus from Maksim.
His ultra-hard 5++ Ohzukus must be wonderfull. Maybe another time I will not be able to withstand

But for now I am extemely delighted with my Shoubu.
Ah, and btw. I have not yet lapped it. I want to savour the stamp a little further.
But I gave it a good polish with my Nagura, Mejiro and Tomo.
The stone quickly took on a good mirror

Congratulations dude! Definitely want to see the picture.

How would you rate the hardness of the naniwa 10k, your Nakayama, ohira,
new Shoubudani and people's hone using the lv(1-5(++)) rating? IIRC then
your shoubu was 5 LV.

Enjoy your new stone.

Sharpman

Congratulations....such a great hone!!! Good luck!!!

How would you rate the hardness of the naniwa 10k, your Nakayama, ohira,
new Shoubudani and people's hone using the lv(1-5(++)) rating? IIRC then
your shoubu was 5 LV.

That is a tough one. I´d like to think of the 1-5-system as an inter-japanese-natural system only.
The system works fine as long as you compare japanese naturals to one another.
Once you apply the system to other stones, or even synthetics things become screwed up.


Now my Naniwa Superstone 10k is a moderately soft stone.
Harder than the Supersotne 8k, softer than any shaptons.
Herein I understand hardness as the resistance to scratching and the toughness of lapping.

Usually the Superstones lapp very easy.

Now the peoples hone is one tough bumm to lapp.
It took me hours to lapp mine. It seems I got a hard one... (wait, this sounds stupid)

The Chinese hone is extremely dense and quite hard, when honing on it I feel nothing but glass.
No feedback or anything. That makes me think of it as being hard.
If it really is hard, I do not know.

Now the Superstone 10k feels very smooth and even a little velvety on the razor.
This makes me instantly wanna say: soft.

My Nakayama Maruka/Maruichi Kiita gives me a similar feeling, velvety smooth.
But raising slurry on it is quite hard. So this makes me think of hard and soft at the same time?!

What I want to say is, what we feel when honing and what we think of as hardness
is not necessary the same thing. How am I supposed to rate what is hard and what is not?

Because japanese naturals are somewhat similar to one another (same binder, if you want)
you can quite easily compare these to one another.

The hardest one I have being the Shoubudani. It feels very hard to the touch, and very dense. Knocking on it gives me the feeling of knocking on something very hard.
Raising a slurry with a hard tomonagura is quite a task. It takes some time and it releases only
very little slurry. With water only the Shoubudani seems not to release any particles,
since I understand that these would diminish the previous polish and make it either scratchy or hazy. Now my Nakayama Kiita does not release slurry fast, either. But with water only
I get a tiny and light scratch on the bevel every now and then, when honing for a long time (lets say 50-100 laps).
I think of this as being a result of released particles.
This and the velvety smooth feel make me believe that my Nakayama Kiita is a bit softer than my Shoubudani.
I would say Shoubudani Asagi lv5, Nakayama Kiita lv4+
Remember, my Nakayama is still very hard. But I came to realize there are higher RPMs out there, so I had to adjust my rating.
B/c if my hard Nakayama would be lv5 already, what would my Shoubudani be? And what would an Ohzuku be??

My Oohira is an extremely quick cutter, you can see swarf on it quickly,
when used with water only for sharpening my kitchen knives.
The stone instantly produces a hazy finish, which I believe is due to the release of particles.
So I would rate this one at lv4.

My Suita is yet quicker and releases slurry easily. I would give it a lv3+


Coming back to comparison between non j-nats and j-nats:
I cannot gouge or scratch any of my naturals (j-nats or Chinese) with my larger knives,
while sharpening free hand. I cannot do this with my shaptons, too.
But the Naniwas I can cut easily if I am not carefull

Does this come near the answer to your question?

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

That is a tough one. I´d like to think of the 1-5-system as an inter-japanese-natural system only.
The system works fine as long as you compare japanese naturals to one another.
Once you apply the system to other stones, or even synthetics things become screwed up.


Now my Naniwa Superstone 10k is a moderately soft stone.
Harder than the Supersotne 8k, softer than any shaptons.
Herein I understand hardness as the resistance to scratching and the toughness of lapping.

Usually the Superstones lapp very easy.

Now the peoples hone is one tough bumm to lapp.
It took me hours to lapp mine. It seems I got a hard one... (wait, this sounds stupid)

The Chinese hone is extremely dense and quite hard, when honing on it I feel nothing but glass.
No feedback or anything. That makes me think of it as being hard.
If it really is hard, I do not know.

Now the Superstone 10k feels very smooth and even a little velvety on the razor.
This makes me instantly wanna say: soft.

My Nakayama Maruka/Maruichi Kiita gives me a similar feeling, velvety smooth.
But raising slurry on it is quite hard. So this makes me think of hard and soft at the same time?!

What I want to say is, what we feel when honing and what we think of as hardness
is not necessary the same thing. How am I supposed to rate what is hard and what is not?

Because japanese naturals are somewhat similar to one another (same binder, if you want)
you can quite easily compare these to one another.

The hardest one I have being the Shoubudani. It feels very hard to the touch, and very dense. Knocking on it gives me the feeling of knocking on something very hard.
Raising a slurry with a hard tomonagura is quite a task. It takes some time and it releases only
very little slurry. With water only the Shoubudani seems not to release any particles,
since I understand that these would diminish the previous polish and make it either scratchy or hazy. Now my Nakayama Kiita does not release slurry fast, either. But with water only
I get a tiny and light scratch on the bevel every now and then, when honing for a long time (lets say 50-100 laps).
I think of this as being a result of released particles.
This and the velvety smooth feel make me believe that my Nakayama Kiita is a bit softer than my Shoubudani.
I would say Shoubudani Asagi lv5, Nakayama Kiita lv4+
Remember, my Nakayama is still very hard. But I came to realize there are higher RPMs out there, so I had to adjust my rating.
B/c if my hard Nakayama would be lv5 already, what would my Shoubudani be? And what would an Ohzuku be??

My Oohira is an extremely quick cutter, you can see swarf on it quickly,
when used with water only for sharpening my kitchen knives.
The stone instantly produces a hazy finish, which I believe is due to the release of particles.
So I would rate this one at lv4.

My Suita is yet quicker and releases slurry easily. I would give it a lv3+


Coming back to comparison between non j-nats and j-nats:
I cannot gouge or scratch any of my naturals (j-nats or Chinese) with my larger knives,
while sharpening free hand. I cannot do this with my shaptons, too.
But the Naniwas I can cut easily if I am not carefull

Does this come near the answer to your question?

Thanks for the detailed post. Based on what you are saying , I would
guess the Chinese hone to be harder than your Nakayama kiita and Oohira,
but slightly softer than your Shoubu. Would you agree?

Sharpman

Unfortunately I can not agree. This is because there is no real consens of how hardness of a stone is defined and how it is measured.
And of course we do not know how hardness effects the performance of a stone (there only is a consens of how hardness is rated for j-nats).

But what I can say is this:
of all my stones I want the Chinese to be the last that ever needs thorough lapping
(giving the fact that neither my Nakayama, nor my Shoubudani have been really in the need for lapping,
although I have lapped my Nakayama a bit and would say it was easier than lapping my Chinese)

Where are you going with this, why the comparison of the hardness of the Chinese (mine, anyway) to that of Japanese?

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

Unfortunately I can not agree. This is because there is no real consens of how hardness of a stone is defined and how it is measured.
And of course we do not know how hardness effects the performance of a stone (there only is a consens of how hardness is rated for j-nats).

But what I can say is this:
of all my stones I want the Chinese to be the last that ever needs thorough lapping
(giving the fact that neither my Nakayama, nor my Shoubudani have been really in the need for lapping,
although I have lapped my Nakayama a bit and would say it was easier than lapping my Chinese)

Where are you going with this, why the comparison of the hardness of the Chinese (mine, anyway) to that of Japanese?

Well I have the naniwa 8k stone and that one is too soft for me. My
plane blade gouges in the stone(freehand honing). That's why I asked
about the hardness of your 10k in comparison to the other stones and
especially to the asagi.

I also have an interest in buying the people's hone, since it is cheap and
many feel it is very fine, hard, good quality. So the hardness of that stone
compared to the shoubu was interesting for me as well.

Another thing I found interesting was that I read in another topic that the
people's hone(one particular) was about Lv3 which I found a bit weird since
many people say it is so hard to lap and also soaking won't help as the water
cannot penetrate it.

Maybe you can check hardness by rubbing the natural stones together and
see what colour slurry is produced. The softer stone(AFAIK) will create the
slurry more, whereas the harder stone will produce less slurry.

Just found this interesting information on hardness:
ROCK HARDNESS CLASSIFICATION - MOHS SCALE

Sharpman

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Well I have the naniwa 8k stone and that one is too soft for me. My
plane blade gouges in the stone(freehand honing). That's why I asked
about the hardness of your 10k in comparison to the other stones and
especially to the asagi.

I also have an interest in buying the people's hone, since it is cheap and
many feel it is very fine, hard, good quality. So the hardness of that stone
compared to the shoubu was interesting for me as well.

Another thing I found interesting was that I read in another topic that the
people's hone(one particular) was about Lv3 which I found a bit weird since
many people say it is so hard to lap and also soaking won't help as the water
cannot penetrate it.

Maybe you can check hardness by rubbing the natural stones together and
see what colour slurry is produced. The softer stone(AFAIK) will create the
slurry more, whereas the harder stone will produce less slurry.

Just found this interesting information on hardness:
ROCK HARDNESS CLASSIFICATION - MOHS SCALE

Sharpman

Are you sharpening western planes or Japanese?
As far as hardness one can't compare Jnat to C12k, coticule Escher or anything else but another Jnat, it is like comparing apples to oranges.
Your proposal of test by rubbing two stones will not work unless the slurries are different color because how will you be able to tell which slurry you are looking at? A more sensitive test will be to make a very light scratch on each stone and see which one will smooth faster, that stone will be the softer one.