Thread: J-Nat club

Originally Posted by alex1921

Okudo shiro suita, at least that's what the seller had it labeled as. Hard stone. Shave was so so. It will probably become a midrange stone but I need more play time with it. The slurry, Atoma 1200, is a lot finer than my Ohira suita that I use for midrange right now.
Nice size for hand honing and a small patch of renge in the middle. The stone was wet and it's drying, the white gets really pronounced when dry.

Attachment 272671

My experience with most suitas is they'll do what you describe. You can get a shave with them, but it's easy to overhone an edge into something with some tooth. The shave is still decent, but it never quite gets there.

My best luck with them is limited strokes to finish, then strop and shave. Then limited strokes again if it's not what you want, and if the edge starts to go backwards, then you have to start over with a prior stone and re-establish an edge, or go up to a finer stone. I really love suitas, anyway. They such a fundamental even cutting power unless they're junk.

Originally Posted by CamMorris

Lots of beautiful stones! I'm intrigued with the Jnats, but how do you buy one or know what to buy and what it should be worth to keep from getting ripped off? Its very confusing. Any trustworthy sources that you deal with out there?

Here is a few trusted sources

Japanese Natural Stones Toishi

Nakayama Kiita Maruka and Nagura razor j nats | Japanese Whetstones

TheJapanStone natural japanese sharpening stones tennen toishi

Japan Tool

Originally Posted by CamMorris

Lots of beautiful stones! I'm intrigued with the Jnats, but how do you buy one or know what to buy and what it should be worth to keep from getting ripped off? Its very confusing. Any trustworthy sources that you deal with out there?

You're shaving, right?

A barber hone (that's bigger than a thuri barber hone - about as long or an inch longer, but wider and just as fine or finer) should be in the range of a c-note if you're willing to take one that's not cosmetically valuable. I would ask a seller this:
* have you shaved off of the stone that you're selling me
* is it finer than a typical tool stone
* is it hard enough that it won't self slurry, but soft enough that it's not super dead like the hardest ozuk
* can you put all of my budget in performance and none in looks
* If this were a tool stone, on a scale of 0-10 where would the fineness be in cutting speed, hardness and fineness
* on a scale of true barber stones that you've used, 0-10, where is this stone on fineness and hardness (cutting speed on a barber hone doesn't matter that much)
* how sticky is this stone on light slurry and how sticky is it on clear water after 25 strokes?
* what is the level of polish that it imparts on a bevel (it should be bright polish on clear water, only the slightest of haze to a mostly bright polish on a light slurry up through bright polish even there)
* how big is it, how thick is it, how much does it weigh, does it have any cracks, is it even thickness and will it sit (it doesn't necessarily need to sit, but if it will sit flat, it will be easy to mount to a board later if you like to do that).

These stones get picked out of barber shops in japan in droves, and while some of them are duds, the stones of less than desirable colors and less than perfect shape can be very cheap. Maybe some day, they'll stop coming out, but I've seen a lot of them and half or so are really good barber hones, most of the rest you can finish a razor, but they're not for beginners.

When you go to newer stones, the experience is less good, and they're more expensive. I don't see the point of getting a stone that's new and marked from imanishi, etc, but I've done that and you can if the seller is honest and the grading is accurate. It's not that there aren't good new stones, it's just that the duds (especially a lot of the gray stones) are stones that really are one trick ponies quite often (for example, some of the wakasa and iwatani stones that are coming out inexpensively from japan right now may be very fine, but they might not have really good feel or any cutting power on clear water).

If you ask a seller for all of the above, you'll drive them nuts, but that's better than buying a nondescript small hone from some seller on ebay for $630 because they say those are good. I see some stuff on there that just makes me shake my head.

A couple of other things:
* gray stones aren't worth anything in japan. You shouldn't pay much for them either. If you can find an honest dealer, that may present an opportunity if they have a good one to get it for a good price
* often, the very dark green stones aren't valuable, either. Like the gray, they can sometimes be prefinishers and not finishers. There are exceptions to that - a dark green true nakayama stone with hatanaka marks and perfection in appearance will bring a lot, but you can avoid those stones. They'll be 4 figures.
* I assume a stamp is fake unless there is something exceptional about the stone. It still may be then. There a lot of fake stamped stones, and now that the dealer's association has agreed that some of the stamps are public domain, who knows what the word fake even means. If I saw kitchen fat that looked like it oxidized for 40 years over parts of a stamp on the end of a stone, I might believe it's real.

Also, don't go by mine name. I've had some real turds that legitimately came from nakayama and shoubu, and I've had coarse suita from okudo and fine suita from ohira (the opposites of what you normally expect). If you see a hardware store dealer (japan woodworker, there's another dealer in berkeley that I can't remember, hida or something) don't buy razor stones from them.

Lastly, if you buy from alex or so or some of the other people, you'll pay a little extra. They have a lot of experience, so you pay for that. If you buy from someone who is not alex or so, then you shouldn't pay what alex or So's expertise costs.

For your first stone, you want capability and fineness over thickness of the stone or long length or a specific color. Spend your money there. A 1/2 inch thick barber hone that maybe started a little bit thicker, but is superb and stable, should last a lifetime. Get something of good width (70mm+). Wide stones are common in japan and narrow stones are almost valueless.

Things that bring the value of a stone down, even if it has decent performance:
* bad color
* uneven bottom
* undesirable mine or suspect that an unmarked stone is not something like nakayama, narutaki, shoubu, ozaki, etc
* instability
* substantial areas relieved on the surface
* scratchy particles (if a stone has scratchy particles or a toxic line at all, it's out for razors. Someone polishing knives may not mind the gap that is left after you pick out particles, but it's not for you - I won't buy those stones no matter what)
* narrow width (huge value hit)
* very thin
* very sticky feel on clear water

Things that bring the value of the stone up, without respect to performance.
* true kiita stones that are fine. Not a good first choice
* significant blue renge on a very white stone (ouch)
* Karasu (only in the US. It doesn't seem to bring that much in japan, and I've never seen any reason why it would)
* true hatanaka stamps with a vintage box (ouch)
(i'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them)

Special mystical talk shouldn't cost you anything. A good dealer can talk about stones matter of fact without talking about blessing wood or erecting temples.

A decent budget request for a new shaver might be something like:
"I need a good barber sized hone stone, but i'm on a budget, so something where there are some cosmetic or coloration or thickness concessions
" I need something that will work with nagura (a stone that doesn't self slurry)
" I'd ilke a mejiro nagura (those are not expensive, but a good step before tomonagura) and a decent tomo nagura (good tomonagura are not expensive, either - perhaps $40. Not sure on the mejiro, but you want something suitable for shaving. they are about $20-$25 in japan.

$200-$300 could get you set up with a stone that would do prefinishing and finish and spank the pants off of a thuri.

when you're starting out, you want finer before you want faster. I'm sure there are more folks than me on here who started with a stone that was a step off of truly good fineness, and thought we couldn't figure out how to hone.

So then what I'd do is, I'd post in the WTB in the BST saying "Need a nice quality jnat for razors, in the range of $X. For my requirements, please read Dave's post here <insert link>".

Nice writeup, with a lot of thought in there, @DaveW. Beginners should definitely give it the consideration it deserves.

Just one obvious remark... if buying from overseas, like Japan, you're gonna need to count on the shipping costs. That may bring the cost of a simple Mejiro from $25 to $40-50US and a nice, big whetstone +$40-50. Shipping from Japan gets expensive! At least to Europe it does..

What I did for my first couple of jnats, I went to cheap options from 330Mate and Metalmaster. Not greatest quality, but good to get the feel and certainly won't break the bank. If you ask these guys all the above questions , it is likely you won't get an answer and if you do, it will likely not be the nicest and most polite answer in the world [emoji6]

I have never purchased from So or Alex, as I find their prices too high, no matter the expertise (which I don't doubt).

You are right, shipping directly from japan is expensive. It's best to try to combine small shippings with a service.

I mention meijiro because it's inexpensive, I just ordered a koma and 4 mejiros yesterday because the service I use is combining packages for free right now. I thought I had a koma, but realize I have a *really* inexpensive meijiro that was about $15 (and I think it has a stamp that looks like asano in terms of layout, but isn't asano). I kind of would prefer finding a pile of nagura like that instead of asano as my opinion is that if not now, there will be little discretion in fake asano stamps later, anyway, and the one that I got is a strong cutter. In a pinch, you could do a small bevel set on it (wouldn't want to do 40 razors in a row with it, but you could get by with one), and then finish on tomo. For someone new, I think meijiro and tomo will do almost everything.

I'm curious about koma, so I wasted money on one, but I don't think they're necessary. Not at two to three times the price of meijiro (and the stone I used had absolutely no trouble going from meijiro to tomo - presume koma is there for the sword polishers or someone else preparing a surface more than sharpening a little tiny bevel).

You are also right about my wish list - picking a few from it is a better idea. Very first stone I ever got for razors (which really begs the question of why I freelanced for a while after that) was a little thin Ozaki barber hone that was relatively unattractive, but I asked Alex to stay under $200 for me to try a barber hone and put all of the money in performance and none in looks. The little (but it was wide, and not that short, just a bit thin) stone that he picked for me was $165 and as good as any I've used. I eventually sold it because I must have about 200 stones right now, but it would've done the final finish work on a thousand razors and outlasted me. Perhaps more than that, and when I did sell it, I sold it for $95, so I didn't get stung bad on it and I was glad to pay that for the expertise.

I also got some surprisingly good stones from fujibato, like a piece of renge okudo that I think he probably picked off of the surface for $90 for a KG. He would never sell that again. It wasn't as good as a $750 stone, but it was awfully good for that and strong cutting like a nagura. And bad. shoubu tomae that were scratchy and sticky from metalmaster (but they were cheap and large, so the price was fair for them, I just had to learn to spend money on quality rather than size), I lost money selling those, the ubiquitous ohira tomae that sells for $200 in japan but $400 here, and my sale of the same stone used was $150 - that's a big loss. I'd have had to lie about it to get someone to pay more for it, and I just can't do that to people - it's antisocial behavior that I'm not down with (and I have a social disorder, so if it offends me, good God it must be sociopathic!).

I have found some real dandies in japan. I dumped one two weeks ago that I should've kept. Bench size stone, soft feeling and super fine, but I can't afford to keep all of them forever, or I won't use any of them enough to learn them. Plus, if I demanded a stone like that as a buyer, it's 1 in 20 in terms of bench stones. What would a seller do with the other 19? I have another one like it that I hope I'm smart enough to keep forever. It has something oxidized over the stamp, so if the stamp was faked, it was a LONG time go, and it was....wait for it.... $32 for a bench sized stone, plus shipping. That's only happened once out of a lot of times, though.

Once in a while you get the bear, but the bear eats me MUCH more often.

Wow! Thanks Dave, a lot of info there, I'll have to read through that a few times!
Thanks for taking the time for such a long post!
Cam

I should be clearer about Fujibato, I never got a good razor stone from him and wouldn't really recommend him for anything other than gambling. He seems to have stopped offering decent stones like the suitable that I got for any reasonable price, and there's something a little off about his expensive stones. Stuff can be gotten on the proxy auction sites for a fraction of what he charges.

I wouldn't advise most people get collector grade stones from any dealer due to the price. Just my opinion, you're out value as soon as you buy. Some of the dealers who sell a lot are just doubling the price of imanishi stones, and I think there's no value in that (e.g., run of the mill at ago atagoyama stones for 700 or 800 bucks). I'd be glad to point people to proxy for hardware dealers in Japan if they want a stone like that. They're commodity stones and about a third of that all the time, only the shipping for them is expensive because they're over 2kg. (About 60 but the supply of them is constant).

Originally Posted by DaveW

You are right, shipping directly from japan is expensive. It's best to try to combine small shippings with a service.

I mention meijiro because it's inexpensive, I just ordered a koma and 4 mejiros yesterday because the service I use is combining packages for free right now. I thought I had a koma, but realize I have a *really* inexpensive meijiro that was about $15 (and I think it has a stamp that looks like asano in terms of layout, but isn't asano). I kind of would prefer finding a pile of nagura like that instead of asano as my opinion is that if not now, there will be little discretion in fake asano stamps later, anyway, and the one that I got is a strong cutter. In a pinch, you could do a small bevel set on it (wouldn't want to do 40 razors in a row with it, but you could get by with one), and then finish on tomo. For someone new, I think meijiro and tomo will do almost everything.

I'm curious about koma, so I wasted money on one, but I don't think they're necessary. Not at two to three times the price of meijiro (and the stone I used had absolutely no trouble going from meijiro to tomo - presume koma is there for the sword polishers or someone else preparing a surface more than sharpening a little tiny bevel).

You are also right about my wish list - picking a few from it is a better idea. Very first stone I ever got for razors (which really begs the question of why I freelanced for a while after that) was a little thin Ozaki barber hone that was relatively unattractive, but I asked Alex to stay under $200 for me to try a barber hone and put all of the money in performance and none in looks. The little (but it was wide, and not that short, just a bit thin) stone that he picked for me was $165 and as good as any I've used. I eventually sold it because I must have about 200 stones right now, but it would've done the final finish work on a thousand razors and outlasted me. Perhaps more than that, and when I did sell it, I sold it for $95, so I didn't get stung bad on it and I was glad to pay that for the expertise.

I also got some surprisingly good stones from fujibato, like a piece of renge okudo that I think he probably picked off of the surface for $90 for a KG. He would never sell that again. It wasn't as good as a $750 stone, but it was awfully good for that and strong cutting like a nagura. And bad. shoubu tomae that were scratchy and sticky from metalmaster (but they were cheap and large, so the price was fair for them, I just had to learn to spend money on quality rather than size), I lost money selling those, the ubiquitous ohira tomae that sells for $200 in japan but $400 here, and my sale of the same stone used was $150 - that's a big loss. I'd have had to lie about it to get someone to pay more for it, and I just can't do that to people - it's antisocial behavior that I'm not down with (and I have a social disorder, so if it offends me, good God it must be sociopathic!).

I have found some real dandies in japan. I dumped one two weeks ago that I should've kept. Bench size stone, soft feeling and super fine, but I can't afford to keep all of them forever, or I won't use any of them enough to learn them. Plus, if I demanded a stone like that as a buyer, it's 1 in 20 in terms of bench stones. What would a seller do with the other 19? I have another one like it that I hope I'm smart enough to keep forever. It has something oxidized over the stamp, so if the stamp was faked, it was a LONG time go, and it was....wait for it.... $32 for a bench sized stone, plus shipping. That's only happened once out of a lot of times, though.

Once in a while you get the bear, but the bear eats me MUCH more often.

Extremely in depth reply and while I dont fully understand it yet, its great that you take the time to help out someome knew and while Im not the OP I still do appreciate the time and effort put into the posts.

Silly question but is there a good resource for explaining the names of all the Japanese stones or comparing them to other offerings. Im new here and very interested in honing and restoring but, terminology gets thrown around and to someone new this can be pretty confusing. Then of courss theres deciding which grits and how many stones which is a completely different rabbit hole to navigate [emoji2] I could honestly care less what a stone looks like Im looking for function and unfortunately stuck with a single earning dads budget!



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There are a lot of various resources, but the amount of information that you see thrown around is dizzying, and it's often parroted and doesn't make a lot of sense. Like seeing a conversation between two people where one says they got a "tomae stone" or an "asagi stone" and the next person says they got a "shobu stone", and the two are talking about their stones as if they're using like terms.

Stones are categorized based on various things:
* the mine the stone came from (nakayama, shoubu, okudo, etc.)
* the layer the stone came from (suita, tomae, etc)
* the fineness (awase do, binsui, nagura, etc)
* characteristics (colors, presence of bad particles, hardness, patterns (renge, karasu, etc))
* other superlatives - like hatahoshi company stamps, etc, statements of genuine nature (sho honzan, etc)

This page has a nice listing, and will provide a reference for stamps on stones if you see them.

https://historyrazors.wordpress.com/...atural-stones/

There are no guarantees. For example, Okudo suita have a reputation as being superb, but there are some that are duds. There may be some that are superb, but they're not what you're looking for (e.g, if you're looking for really fast cutting, you're not going to be looking for the hardest and finest Okudo suita). Other mines might not have great reputations - ohira suita are often softer and coarser, but some come around sometimes that are harder and finer.

Misuse or incomplete information often comes when not enough terminology is used - for example, there was a rash here a few years ago of people talking about how they needed to get a "shoubu". All that says is mine. I've had some total turds from shobu, but I didn't do my due diligence in communicating with dealers and getting exactly what I wanted, or paying the price for what I wanted (bargain stone hunting new stones often leads to discontent).

Refer to that page when you see people use various terms. One of my favorite things is shiro suita. I might say Okudo shiro suita (that would be really expensive), I don't have one but I would probably say "medium fineness relatively hard and very fast Okudo Shiro suita, type 24 with attractive blue renge"

that would provide the hardness and cutting characteristics, the color (shiro, though that can also refer to the bottom layer of suita), Okudo (the mine the stone came from), Suita (layer in case that's not covered by shiro - in this case, it is, because shiro stones don't generally come from other layers), the size (type 24) and a characteristic (blue renge).

Except I don't have a stone with all of those characteristics. A really large one could be mid 4 figures. I just missed out on a stone with those characteristics but from ohira last weekend for $925. It would've been a bargain, and it would've been by far the most expensive stone I've gotten - I had a mental lapse. I hope the person who got it slips on the sidewalk and tosses the stone through the air (like happens in the cartoons) only to have it land in a soft patch of my yard.