Thread: Japanese naturals - Finishing question

As previously mentioned by Jim, they're porous, meaning soap will absorb into the body of the stone, that's bad. It has the ability to break down the binders in the stones, like Shapton's and Chosera's, as far as I know. I was also told to use minimal amounts of water by an old J nat expert on this forum some time ago. His name was Old School. He sold high quality stones at affordable prices. It was a shame to see him go. Stones like the Coticule are non porous, so you can use oil, water, lather, grape jam, whatever you want. That's Jam, not jelly, it makes a difference when abrading steel.

Just like the Shapton GS, they say in the instructions not to use soap.