Thread: Jnat buyers remorse: please help me ;'(

Originally Posted by mainaman

I am really confused by your posts here.
#1 you have not tried the stone to make any comments about the quality.
#2 just because the line is shiny does not mean it is toxic, I bet the stone was tested before the sale and it was determined that the line is not a problem.


I have soft tomonagura and it can scratch the stone easy as soon as I put too much pressure on it, the corner can dig into the stone just like that, if the OP decided to press harder seeing that the slurry was not generated as fast as the OP figured it should, I can see how the stone will get scratched. Heck I have a lvl 5+ tomonagura and it does not scratch when used carefully.
I would understand your comments if you actually had tried that particular stone and tomonagura but you are commenting based on the notes a of newbie that had his best edge off a Norton 8k, the guy has a ton to learn before he can make any final judgement on his particular Jnat.

There is no need for confusion. You need to read my post more clearly
before you respond. I did not comment on the quality of the stone. Before even
seeing the stone I responded that the OP should look for shiny lines on the stone
as they MIGHT be toxic line, not just in that particular stone, but in general. I never
said op's stone had a toxic line, but it might be possible. Just because Maxim sold
that stones does not mean that I cannot inform OP that this possibility exists.

It is good as a buyer to get you stones from somebody you can trust, but you
still should test your stone yourself always.

I have a few soft tomonaguras and I can put all the pressure in the world on it
and still not scratch my hard stones. Perhaps mine are considerably softer.

Using a harder tomonagura than the stone itself does not make sense to me,but
I might be wrong. It can create many scratches even if you are careful.

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Using a harder tomonagura than the stone itself does not make sense to me,but
I might be wrong. It can create many scratches even if you are careful.

Well you need more experience may be? I use it this way on my softer stones for pure slurry from the base and works great and there is no scratches whatsoever.
Still the thread is about helping the OP to get better results with his stone not about stone qualities etc. Stone qualities can be discussed in a separate thread, if you want to start one.

To the OP: you will never get a good Jnat to achieve its full potential if *you* have not achieved your full potential on the lower grits first. That is the bottom line stated as bluntly as I can state it.

So what I would advise is to hang in there, step away from the Jnat for a while, and concentrate on generating the best edges you can get off your lower grit hones. While you are doing that you can read up on the many and varied ways people use their Jnats (I rub a razor on mine, sometimes with slurry... ). Then you can try all these ways if you want, gain experience with your stone the way we all did, and join the fraternity of "we really don't know what we are doing with these rocks, but it seems to be working"!

James.

i have a question or two . how's the shave off of the 8k with out any help from pastes. Is your stone flat ,i find it hard to belive that water stones can flaten a j-nat. if i were you i would use a diamond plate draw a grid do 10-15 lite circles and see if the grid is gone.

Originally Posted by eleblu05

i have a question or two . how's the shave off of the 8k with out any help from pastes. Is your stone flat ,i find it hard to belive that water stones can flaten a j-nat. if i were you i would use a diamond plate draw a grid do 10-15 lite circles and see if the grid is gone.

Hi, sure. the shave off the 8k is quite nice. I usually did not finish on the 8k. a few more seasoned members told me that I should never venture into higher grits (especially naturals) until I can get a nice and smooth shave from the 8k and that was when I started finishing on Norton 8k with super light x strokes (slightly rolling) and 60 laps on steerhide It was a lot better than I expected, nice and smooth.
I do find however that doing 80 to 100 light strokes in my smooth lapped chinese natural will make the edge even sharper/smoother. I can get great shaves off the 8k and if I use cnat I make it real smooth. but no HHT. smooth shave but no HHT. (HHT only possible after 0.25 micron diamond on felt stropping)


I did the grit on the jnat. I believe 1k laps it pretty fast and well. I have only extra extra course DMT and it would live big scratches on my jnat so I didnt take the diamond plate to it.
1k ate the jnat very fast actually. lapping the jnat is alot easier than lapping PHIG ( I have lapped both)

Maybe its your hair, could be to fine for the HHT

Originally Posted by Dllandry

Maybe its your hair, could be to fine for the HHT

Hi D thanks for the response!
maybe! that is a possibility. I will try to obtain some other hair and try again, but most importantly I hope you can help me by assessing the edges at the Toronto meet in April (hopefully).

UPDATE:

today I took out a tuggy razor (shavable but it pulled). with 1 layer of tape (it has it's bevel set that way). honed it on my tried and true cnat: first with slurry then with plain water. Until the razor was touched up for comfortable shaves. No HHT, did not sever the hair without ANY feedback or pull. shaving leg hair: If I move the razor very slowly, I could still feel the pull of the blade on the hair . I could feel the pull but barely.

at this point I took out the Ozuku and wetted the surface. I decided to do very very light strokes to give it a good finish. did 20 "negative pressure" x strokes and a couple light strops (as Alex suggested to remove any possible burr) and dried the blade. did the same test got the same result.

did another 20 x strokes. still no change. at this point I wetted the stone again (only a few drops) and did light circles and some strop strokes. I did this for longer but was not counting because I was convinced the edge changing is very slow (if there is any change at all). at the end I dried the blade and tested. no change. stropped on steerhide, no tangible change.

lesson 1 learned: super light x strokes on a few drops of water probably wont change the edge if I came off the cnat.

This is progress, slow controlled experimentation only changing 1 variable at a time,, this is exactly how I attack a new stone one small step at a time...


Good job

g

Originally Posted by mainaman

Well you need more experience may be? I use it this way on my softer stones for pure slurry from the base and works great and there is no scratches whatsoever.
Still the thread is about helping the OP to get better results with his stone not about stone qualities etc. Stone qualities can be discussed in a separate thread, if you want to start one.

I have used a harder stone to create slurry on a soft to medium hard stone
without scratches(hard tomonagura on my kiita), but this is not OP's situation.
OP has a hard to very hard stone and a tomonagura that is softer.

Using a hard tomonagura on a hard to very hard stone creates scratches from
my experience. The high hardness of the stone makes it more breakable, so when
two hard to very hard stones are rubbed against each other, you get scratches
(mini breaks).

OP mentioned that his tomonagura created scratches on his very hard stone
which makes me think, from my experience, that the tomonagura is about as
hard as the stone itself.

I still believe that you responded to me without really reading my posts
carefully as you wrote:
''#1 you have not tried the stone to make any comments about the quality.''
I never commented on the stones quality, I merely discussed what might be
a problem possibly. Perhaps we should all try each other's stone first before we
can speak about it in any possibilities, that does not make sense now does it?

Sharpman