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

I bought a level 5+ Ozuku kiita stone the other day. it arrived yesterday and I lapped it and started honing on it.
I had high expectations, I told the vendor that I want to pass HHT-4 consistently and play around to get HHT-5. (Please don't argue that HHT is not a good measure of sharpness, at least it is in the ballpark and I have had consistent results with it too).

I was told that this particular stone is very hard and that is no problem.
I also bough Botan , Tenjo and Mejiro nagura to use on my stone.

after honing on it today I realized HHT-3 is not possible after stropping. My test shave was poor. The blade could shave me but with a considerable amount of pulling on my whiskers I shaved one cheek and had to pull out another razor to finish the job.

I can get a good shaving edge from Norton 1k, then 4k, then 8k and steerhide strop. (I don't finish on 8k but someone told me if you can get the blade shave ready on 8k you are ready for natural finishers, hence I tried it)

Typically I finish the blade after 8k on 0.5 micron crox then 0.25 diamond paste and then leather, I get a great shave.

It took me a long time to learn the basics of honing on Norton 4/8k so before jumping with both feet I had read information on how to use jnats on coticule.be japanesenaturalstones.com and a couple videos on youtube. also a little bit of word of mouth.

I bought my stone from a very reputable seller, and I am sure that my technique and knowledge is the problem. what should I do? how should I hone?
I highly appreciate your help.

Sorry you feel that way. I can't help but have been thinking of getting a jnat so want to subscribe.

That's tough, I was starting to feel the same with mine until I finally got a shaving edge (after weeks of practice). However, I doubt you got ripped off. Japanese natural stones are tough to learn. It seems like all the posts from people new to them are about having trouble getting good edges (myself included!)

Here's the thread I started a little while back about it :
http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ral-stone.html

Unfortunately, with natural stones it's all about learning how your particular stone works. Where synthetics and pastes have lots of very consistent information out there, natural stones are all a little bit different. I'm still trying to learn mine, and after a month of playing around with them I've just started to get HHT-2 and -3 off my razors. The plus side is that the edges have been very smooth, and I am improving, little by little.

How did you try to use it the first time around? That is a good place to start so that some of the more knowledgeable folks here can help you.

for more information here is how I proceeded:

Set bevel on Norton 1k (I did this because my dovo razor did not sit flat on the hone) I set the bevel and then some light strokes on the Norton 1k until it could shave my arm hair relatively easily (I finished with very light strokes)

I followed the procedure at coticule.be so I proceeded with raising botan slurry on the hone. I raised the slurry and did circles and then x strokes with light pressure until the slurry turned grey/yellow/light brownish from white. at this point I washed my hone and did another set with a lighter touch. then I did the same with Tenjo and then Mejiro.
at this point I realized my blade can not pop arm hair above skin. I tried to raise tomo nagura but my tomo nagura is soo hard it was impossible, I scratched my stone instead.

desperately I took out my 12k cnat and did 50 strokes it brought the edge to a condition to cut hair above skin.
so I proceeded with applying a couple drops of water to the Ozuku and honing VERY lightly hoping to polish the edge with no success.

HHT3 fail for me ;( I can get the same edge from Norton 8k. and that costs $90 not $400 ($500 with duties and tax)

I can't help much with the other naguras, as I only got a tomonagura with mine, with the idea to go from a finished coticule edge to the Japanese Natural stone.

However, with that I had better results with a medium tomonagura slurry, and really just working it, and then diluting and working it some more. I was doing 2 sets of 10 circles each side, then 20 half strokes, then 10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and then 10 x-strokes. Then I'd dilute and repeat starting with half strokes with the lightest pressure I could manage.

I can't say whether that's even the best way to do things, but so far it's got me to the best place with my stone. I've got a lot more practicing myself.

Don't give up yet! It just takes time! I'm sure someone who's had even better results will chime in soon.

How did you lap the stone?

Originally Posted by tlittle

I can't help much with the other naguras, as I only got a tomonagura with mine, with the idea to go from a finished coticule edge to the Japanese Natural stone.

However, with that I had better results with a medium tomonagura slurry, and really just working it, and then diluting and working it some more. I was doing 2 sets of 10 circles each side, then 20 half strokes, then 10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and then 10 x-strokes. Then I'd dilute and repeat starting with half strokes with the lightest pressure I could manage.

I can't say whether that's even the best way to do things, but so far it's got me to the best place with my stone. I've got a lot more practicing myself.

Don't give up yet! It just takes time! I'm sure someone who's had even better results will chime in soon.

Thank you very much that helped a lot. I was just reading your thread. I never used coticules. I can get real nice edges with 8k Norton.

my tomo nagura is very hard and it takes a LOONG time to raise slurry on it and it is easy to scratch my hone if I am not careful, so I am not a fan of using it a lot. The gentleman who sold me the stone kindly told me that he would send me a softer tomo nagura also for which I am very appreciative.

I got a good edge from 8k and then cnat and then pastes, I could have been happy but the idea of the legendary HHT5 got to me.

I will keep practicing until I can get the hang of this stone. although I can't use it effectively yet, I somehow like it a lot.

I wanted to get a mirror finish on the bevel and super sharp edge but I got disappointed. I guess it has a steep learning curve.

Originally Posted by mainaman

How did you lap the stone?

mainaman I am so happy you replied because I heard you put an HHT5 on a filarmonica edge.

this is how I lapped the stone: soaked my Norton 1k in water for 15 minutes, then I lapped the jnat until it was flat. then I proceeded with Norton 4k to make it smooth. finally I used the tomo nagura to make the stone shiny.

I think I have to lap it again though since I was careless with tomo nagura and I scratched the stone while honing ;(

If it helps, with my harder stone it takes quite a long time to make slurry (I didn't really keep track, but I was making circles with my tomonagura for about one song playing in the background). If you go light and just keep at it I'd imagine you'd get something. Better to take longer than scratch up the stone anyways.

May be start by using the hone to just tweak an edge that is already good to shave. When you figure out how to use it in that regime see about the slurry. It just strikes me that you are doing a lot of things that you're unfamiliar with, so simplifying them into bites that are easier to chew would be my approach.

Edit: Also the seller may be able to help you better than any of us. If they have tested the hone and know how it behaves they should be able to recommend something that would work.