Thread: Tomonagura confusion

Originally Posted by Disburden

This statement is confusing me . If you mean tomonagura slurry comes before mejiro or koma, that is incorrect, tomonagura/honzan slurry is the final slurry. For example this is my order of nagura:
Botan
Mejiro
Koma

Final tomonagura oozuki asagi slurry on the same stone.all the other stones prior are less fine...

We agree, sorry if I wasn't clear. Tomonagura slurry after all the nagura slurries finished.

two questions: do tomonagura have kanji on them? and why are the kanji on hones put on the top honing surface? why not the side?

Originally Posted by ezpz

two questions: do tomonagura have kanji on them? and why are the kanji on hones put on the top honing surface? why not the side?

No kanji on the tomonagura it is just a piece of stone.
Only nakayama Maruka have stamp on the side. I would think the kanji it is not meant to last, also many stones get lacquered on the sides for reinforcement and the kanji will be invisible if the lacquer is not clear (which it is not always.). Probably there are other reasons too.

I don't know how true this is, but a while ago I was told that the reason to use a tomonagura over diamond is because the diamond plate breaks down the slurry quickly while it is produced where as the tomonagura does not as much. I have not experienced this myself as I have a tomonagura.

Hi Claude
You can use your Wakasa nagura on you Ozuku just fine no need for another Tomae Nagura
You can actually smoothen you stones with each other and make slurry with each other it will make very good result.

Originally Posted by maxim207

Hi Claude
You can use your Wakasa nagura on you Ozuku just fine no need for another Tomae Nagura
You can actually smoothen you stones with each other and make slurry with each other it will make very good result.

Thanks Maxim

That is what I was planning to do, to use the whole wakasa karasu stone as a giant nagura which would have the advantage of keeping the Ozuku flat and smoothe.

Claude

Originally Posted by maxim207

Hi Claude
You can actually smoothen you stones with each other and make slurry with each other it will make very good result.

This is the approach I began using after a conversation with Stefan...

After I finish with the tomonagura Maxim provided me with my Oozuku Asagii, I use my Iwasaki Choice Nakayama to polish any scratches out of my Oozuku. I then use the slurry created from this as a final tomonagura step before moving to water alone.

So let me get this straight, you can use a piece of your finishing stone as your Tomonagura. Is this correct? Now that would make sense since using the same stone it would not be harder or softer. Lucky for me I just bought a stone that I can have cut and still have plenty left. On another note, Has anyone messed around with slurrys made from Tsushima Nagura stones? There supposed to make very very fine slurries from what I understand. Any comments or insight?

Stan

To keep a perspective on diamond plates & scratches on your stones.
IIRC the Shapton DGLP is around 600 grit & is recommended for lapping their super fine 30k, .49 micron, glass stone. The Atoma 1200 is obviously 1200 grit. Just food for thought.

I've used several different naguras, including the Tsushima. The Tsushima was my favorite, because it was soft enough to make slurry easily and didn't scratch the stones it was used on.

I'm using a full-size Tsushima as a middle stone. Roughly 4k-5k grit, very even, fantastic stone.

I'm now using a worn extra-fine 6" DMT stone to generate all slurry. The DMT is big enough so that it maintains flatness while generating slurry, produces no visible scratch marks, and works (by definition) like a tomonagura, generating same-stone slurry.

The notion that diamonds break down the slurry faster is intriguing. I don't have the equipment to test it.