I want to see the reflection of light when your stone is dry.
The first picture just shows the reflection of light of the water/air surface and not of the stone.
Printable View
Is this what you mean ?
Yes.
I see some light scatter on the mirror image.
The stone itself look a bit milky too.
The surface is decent smooth but you still have small scratches caused by diamond stone.
I think you can get better results with this stone if you smooth it with another Jnats you have.
Thank you, I have tried already in the past & found no extra benefit. Whatever small scratches there are get filled in by the slurry & when used with plain water there is no degradation of the edge. I realise there are 2 schools of thought on this & this is just my experience.
Yes you are right there are 2 schools in Japan one is of using Jnat stones with knife and tools where you use a lot of pressure on the stone and particles break very fast under pressure and larger surface
Then they are razor and sword honing where you need you stone as smooth as possible and they use only naguras or other natural stones to flatten stones.
With sward because they dont want any loose diamonds to scratch they finish and for razors because there is no pressure when honing and very small sharpening surface.
Niiiice! :)
Yep, I love J-Nat edges, my Maruichi is far and away my favourite finisher.
Ha, I think you'll like. It's a very fine finisher. The big thing with these ultra hard J nats is the finish you put on it. It must have a glass like finish, I took mine to 1000 grit sandpaper....
I don't recommend using a DMT plate to raise a slurry, It can mess up the finish of the stone, IMHO, YMMV.
I would use Tomonagura to raise slurry on this type of hone. Also, they excell at the Nagura sharpening system.
Rich
I do not think that there are 2 schools.
Just let me explain it with a analogy.
There is a Joe living in a "Small Village".
There is a other villages 10 miles away.
Lets call it West Village.
Now there is a globetrotter North who lives in San Francisco who often travel to Tokyo.
There is another globetrotter South who lives in Sydney and travel to Johannesburg South Africa.
These 3 guys make a discussion on a forum
"What is the shortest pass going west from point A to B"
Joe writes in the forum:
"Just head west. In my experience going from my Small Village to West Village you just head west. That is the shortest pass. "
West Village <<<<<<< heading west from Small Village
10 miles
To this globetrotter North replies:
"No No ! you are wrong. When I fly from SFO to NRT the plane head northwest first, then go west and finally it goes southwest.
Look at this picture
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...routes.svg.png
This is the shortest pass."
Now comes the globetrotter South
"No No! You two guys are wrong. If I fly from SYD to JND I head southwest then west and finally to northwest. That's my experience with a Qantas flight."
These 3 guys discussed and discussed and all 3 guys insisted in their personal experience.
Joe comes to conclusion to agree for disagree and said:
"there are 3 schools"
The question here is "Is Joe right?"
No Joe was wrong!
If Joe had some insight of geometry he would know that the shortest pass on a sphere is a great circle and all three are talking about the great circle.
Great circle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now lets go back to the lapping and smoothing discussion of hard Jnats.
Onimaru-san knows that a smooth surface is needed for final lapping.
He writes:
So he knows that DMT #325 makes bigger scratches, a new Atoma 1200 medium scratches, a 7 month old make smaller scratches and the very old Atoma 1200 is best of all.Quote:
Actually my current Atoma is only 7 months old. I sold my well used one :shrug:
This experience and observation is in line what I am saying. You must have a smooth surface of the stone.
Oniomaru-san writes also:
This is the same as I write the softer the stone more tolerance to scratches made by diamonds.Quote:
Whatever small scratches there are get filled in by the slurry & when used with plain water there is no degradation of the edge.
If you have a very hard stone like the very hard shoubu discussed in this thread I recommend to make the surface as smooth as possible.
It is the same as the discussion of the 3 guys about the shortest pass A to B.
If you go 10 miles just heading west is right. If you go 5000miles you must head more north if it is in northern hemisphere.
How much north will depend where you start and the distance.
It the same as how much smooth depend on how much hard the Jnats is.
I just hope everyone understand it.
I think i had too many drams tonite to figure out the above statement:)
DRAMs??
Dynamic random access memory
yes
I added torn ;)Quote:
I don't know how hard this particular shoubu is as it is a long way from where I live but I know my Nakayama Asagi (pictured above) is very hard & as I said before I have tried both ways with this stone & the torn Atoma 1200 is perfectly adequate as a slurry stone in 99% of cases.
I personally don't use diamonds to raise a slurry anymore. I didn't like the way they were roughing up the surface of my stone. It seems to me that as you sharpen steel on a stone it gets smoother and smoother. This makes it work slower and give a finer polish. If you add a rougher mix to the slurry it will roughen up the stone, speeding it up, and leaving a rougher finish to the blade. This is when you need to remove a lot of metal. Then you clean the stone really good and rub it down really well with a very hard and smooth tomonagura and work that fine slurry with the blade, smoothing the stone back out again and making it suitable for the final polish.
I'm not sure how much work the slurry actually does directly to the blade. I think it might serve to dull it slightly and help prevent the formation of a wire edge. It seems like the slurry is more about roughing or smoothing the surface of the stone, which then acts on the blade. If that makes any sense. Everything I do is by feel, I have never really seen whats going on.
You know how smooth the stone is by the feel you get when you run the blade across it. Looking at how it reflects light is deceptive, the same way some synthetic stone may give a mirror finish but not be as good as the dull finish by a fine jnat.
I can tell when I'm getting a good polish because i can't feel anything happening, the blade is sliding without any noticible friction. It's hard to get this condition with poor quality stones. Hopefully my new one will be easier to get in this state.
I'm sorry if my post is hard to read. I'm not that good of a writer.
Actually the finest, hardest Jnats will give you closer to a mirror finish if used with water alone.
The kasumi finish comes from unevenly sized particles in the stone &/or slurry creating scratches of slightly unequal depth so light reflects differently off the surface.
The more even the grit, the less haze, again, I stipulate with water only. Using a slurry on the same stone will give you the haze due to different sized particles.
Can wel call Shouboudani, Shoubou? Or Scooby Doo?Shobo?
Beautiful stone Zib. Congratz.
Have you done what DrNaka suggested, getting a mirror surface
on your stone?
Why are asagi's so special? Is is because they are from deep strata
and therefore very hard and fine? Are there other reasons? I also
read they can be scratchy? How is this effect mitigated?
Which mine produces the best asagi stones? I would guess Nakayama
since stones from this mine is ar so popular and expensive. Which mine
also has beautiful asagi stones, but much less expensive? I might buy
one in the future. Damn this HAD!!!
Sharpman
They're not really that special. There are good ones & bad ones but the ones that aren't scratchy are the special ones. Asagi come from the Namito layer & odds are most Namito are better razor stones. Don't limit your search to one type, Even Suita could do at a pinch. Most would certainly improve an 8k finish. I recently acquired a Tomae (thanx Muscles) which is a shallower layer but works great for finishing razors. Nakayama, Oozuku, Shoubudani are all known for good Asagi but you need to use a trusted seller & if possible test the stone first. And it helps a lot if you know what you want. Again the seller should be able to help guide you.
Thank you.
In the future I will be looking for a very hard, very fine, uniform,
no su/toxic lines. Size 8 by 2.5 or 3. An inch thick.
Now such a stone from the Nakayama mine would probably cost at
least 500 dollars :boohoo: or more That is why I am interested in the other mines. I mean I don't care from which mine it comes as long as it is working
very good.`
Sharpman
Sharpman, maxim at jns can help you find one for about $300.
I recently bought an expensive okudo nashiji which I absolutely love. Very hard and fine.
Money is difficult right now. But the blue colour of an asagi is very tempting right now.
I am absolutely certain that if I had an asagi I would want the okudo
nashiji that I have now.
I guess for somebody like me HAD means buy a stone, use it for
a while and then sell it to buy another one. HAHAAHA. It's a good
thing these stones sell easy(my impression).
Perhaps use my okudo a while longer and then if I can't stop my HAD
sell it and buy an asagi from Maxim.
Sharpman
What's so special about asagi? To be honest I find it to be one of the less appealing colors, and this is coming from the guy who just dropped a couple hundred bucks on one. I really like some of the reds and purples that alex has.
Hi Stefan, how are you doing mate.
Educate me please. I am thinking my next natural stone should
be very hard, very fine. I would like the hone to feel very smooth
you know, as if you are not doing anything on it, but in the meantime
the stone is really fine polishing the metal.
I would also like the stone to be very uniform, no lines. Which type
of stone(strata) and from which mine would be the most affordable?
I have never used an asagi, but from the comments it seems one of
the best to do this job.
I have an okudo nashiji that is also very fine. Very sharp and misty/haze
finish. But you know HAD better than I do.
Sharpman
hazy finish means that the stone is not that fine.
if you want good stone , contact Maksim
JNS
Rich, Lynn, I got our stones from him.
That's strange. Because I get mirror like finish on naniwa ss
3000. It's quite sharp even then. Then I do naniwa 8000 SS
and it's almost perfect mirror and even sharper. Then I
finish on the okudo stone and the mirror polish disappears, but
the edge gets even sharper.
Sharpman
Hi, I do have a mirror finish on the Shoubudani. After I lapp it with both the DMT XX and C. ( I start with XX and move to C) I use wet sandpaper, up t0 1000 grit. I wrap the sandpaper around the DMT Plates, and it works great in the sink under running water...
The surface of the Shoubudani is like glass. It has little sparkles in the stone. Very cool looking. Very nice finisher...I recently used my nagura. Worked well.
I recently took a Fily Double Temple 13 to it, One of those Classic Shaving NOS Fily's, they had a while back. They were bad out of the box, and usually needed a bevel set...Anyway, Mine was so so, shaved ok, nothing to write home about. I used the Nagura,
Mejiro, and Koma, and finished with Tomonagura, then just water. It shaves great now. I used X's, and little circles, I watched for the slurry to change as I went. The edge is keen, but doesn't have that bite to it....Good shaver...
Thanks for the post Zib. Good explanation.
I did my usual thing again. SS 1000,3000,8000 and then finished
on the okudo nashiji.
On the SS 3000 I get half mirror, half misty/hazy. On the 8000 I
get very good mirror, not perfect. On the Okudo, I get the
about the same as on the SS 3000, half mirror, half hazy,slightly
less actually. Not sure how this is called.
Sharpman
Your Okudo is obviously a fine stone if it improves the edge after your synthetics but don't expect a mirror polished edge looking exactly the same as a synthetic. The natural particles are more rounded than jagged synthetics so light will still reflect differently.
Finally started my taxes! Just sent another email to Maxim, so we shoudl hopefully begin picking out a stone in the next few days.:beer2:
I just hope I don't have to return those razors back to their respective shops before I get to try out my new Shoobie Doobie--most of them are hard steels (which I love)...
As my early post i mention i will try to buy one and let you know what i think about them.
As all natural stones not all of them is as fine as we like.
Some of them i don't think you could call excellent finisher.
if you are going to buy one try to test first then buy it.
This is 2 of them i bought and they are finest grit .
They will do great job .
Cutting power is medium.
Edge is fine which you will get comfortable shave off it.
Thank you Rich for posting this threat and letting us know about those stones.
gl
Another thing: how has everyone been doing the initial flattening (I know about the final smoothing) for these? I don't have a D8XX & don't really want to buy one for just one stone. Has anyone used (good) wet/dry paper @ the 120 or so level? I can then go to my D8C & then onward, but I'm wondering about scratches from bad paper for the 1st step in the process.
Stefan
if you have finest one i would say it is very close to escher with a lot more cutting power.
I had tested couple different ones and choose 2 which is one huge size and next one is normal size.
Even there is differences between this 2.
To use this stone is a lot easier compare to escher etc ,i mean anyone can use it.Nothing special.
I don't think we all get the same stone.source is different too? i may be wrong.
color of the stones are different.
what i got has yellowish to it but most i have seen in here seems like purplish.
About the lapping.
PA23-250 120 paper will be a little aggressive for this stone. it is soft stone.
if you can start 325 you should be fine.
i usually never go more then 600 and very rare 1k level.
you shouldn't have any trouble to lap this stone.
hope this helps.
Those are real bear to lap, mine is still with 2 low corners, and I just spent 40 minutes with DMT XXC on another Shobudani and gave up , it still has all corners low.
Sham, the source of your stones is definitely different. I too agree those stones are not hard to use even with different sluries.