Thread: Akatsuki hone

Originally Posted by mainaman

Sometimes when you hone harder steels on hard stones you can get microchipping, the solution is to use softer stone.
Super stones are soft stones really and IME they work fine for Wackers and Revisors.

Naniwa Superstones and possibly the Belgian Coticule for softness (of the hone) at higher finishes?

Originally Posted by Gibbs

Naniwa Superstones and possibly the Begian Coticlue for softness (of the hone) at higher finishes?

I have not tried coticule on those so I can't comment.
I have done most honing of those razors on softer Jnats after SS progression, I am sure Escher/Thuringian will work really well too.

The question does a razor exist, that is not honeable on a Naniwa Super, but honeable on a Shapton (ie. soft binder vs. hard binder) will not be answered anytime soon.
My take on the problem: I truly believe any decent razor can be sharpened on any decent honing system.

When it comes to brittleness, or microchipping: I found that dirt, hairs, dust and all that stuff will cause these problems,
when they fall on to the surface of a stone. In that case it doesn´t matter if it´s a Shapton, a Naniwa or an Akatsuki.
I am very picky when it comes to polish and chipping, everytime I hone a blade I check it under my 200x microscope, for good measure.
I didn´t find any correlation between Honing Systems and certain makers.

My Wacker Jahresmesser 2008 as well as my Iwasaki Kamisori (both said to be made of very hard steel) are honed on my Shapton System,
up to the super hard Shapton 30.000, without a problem. I sold my Shapton GS 16.000 a year or two ago because I thought it caused microchipping on my Wacker.
It turned out that it was actually me. Now I own the 16k and the 30k as well. I don´t know what exactly changed (certainly not the steel of the Wacker, or the nature of the GS 16k)
but suddenly it works, and it does fine. I guess it comes down to choice of honing system and mastering it

Less I actually agree with you, I have honed hard steel razors on very hard stones too, I think it is just how the stones are used to get the desired result. I find that harder stones are just easier to mess up the edge with if one is not careful. I think this is why SS is such great overall system it works well with almost any steel, and is easy to use.

absolutely agreed