Originally Posted by
cman670
I have a few different doings for this, based on what worked best for a particular stone (not only Jnats).
1. Making slurry on the edges of the stone itself, using a harder dressing stone. Does wonders with a couple of Jnats and several other natural stones. The edges will wear a bit, but in the last few years nothing major.
2. Making slurry with the "edge" of the tomo itself by going the round way. Actually this works well even when the normal approach would be trouble free. I've got two that previous owners already used them like this. One is on a Jnat, the other on an Escher.
3. Putting some shallow channels with round edges on very fine and hard tomos also did wonders. I use two of them like that these days, but I've tried it several times.
4. The diamond plate way, making sure it's broken in at least (I use them on a novaculite before anything else and so far so good). This might be troublesome with some stones, as you need to find the right sweet spot for the surface. On some, a worn out 600 is plenty enough, on one I had to go even to my 2000 (this was hard to guess at first) for best possible results, going back and forth between them and comparing edges. This is one reason not everyone is in favor of diamond plates based on their own experiences. At some point I was for using small DMT plates, but over time I saw they developed a problem. Since it was on all 4 of them, I've stopped using them entirely. Some diamond resin pads work well with some stones, even not natural ones and are more trouble free, but also quite slow.
Of course I've talked to people searching just for the right tomo for a long time and I've been at it myself in the past. That's one way of doing it also. For one very hard and fine Nakayama, I have only one tomo that worked best. And on my kiita, another that was spot on. I've paid 50$, but well worth the money as I'm happy with it ever since.
Now keep in mind that cosmetics aren't always the definitive factors for the quality of an edge. I ended up enjoying edges that looked more or less bad (let's just say not perfect) and not so much some edges that were a beauty to look at. At the end of the day, it's about shaving more than anything else, for me at least. This goes for the stones as well. If the scratches do not impact the edge, just let it be, let it be...
Sandpaper at some point might release particles into the surface (some say diamond plates do this as well). I don't enjoy sandpaper for that many things actually. There is always a cheaper and/or better way on the long run.