Thread: J-Nat club

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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