Thread: Educate me on Japanese natural water stone please.

When It comes to straight razor shaving, you quickly learn to pick up a Belgian coticule for your razor, estimated grit of 8+, then maybe a thuringian hone or an Escher band hone to finish the edge 12+ grit. These this are all natural hone. I have seen so many Japanese natural water stone around mostly one line. with so many confusing names. How do you tell which once can be used for finishing a razor and the grit as well. I am sure we would agree Escher band hone is an excellent finishing hone. What Japanese natural hone can you compare with a thuringian or escher, or maybe slightly below an Escher brand hone.. It would be nice to see a list of natural Japanese stone with a estimated grit rating for buy reference.
The pictures are for references only. I dont own any of them

NOTE: keep this discussion to Natural Japanese Stone, Not interested in man made Japanese hones

You can't put grit numbers on naturals. A lot of people are doing it, but that is simply nonsense. IMO the best classification I have found is, that everything that finishes better than a 8k synth is considered as a "finisher". All finishing whetstones are different, give a sligthly different shave that some prefer, some not.

Nothing will tell you from names or pics which Jnats are good for razor honing, and which aren't. The best you can do is to buy from a reputable seller, who knows what stones we need for razors, ie: Alex from thejapanblade, and Maxim from JNS. There are other good sellers out there, but both of these guys are shaving with a straight, and test their razor hones with razors. So anything you buy from them will be a nice finisher, if they say so. If you are going to buy from a different source, than look for the hardest stone possible, I think that way you will have better chances to get a good finisher for razors. But you never know with these sources until you try it out.

PS: Avoid the seller you took the pics from, if you want to get a good jnat for a good price

Let's try and explain using the hones you are talking about..

Eschers are simply Thuringens that an expert graded, ie: only the best Thuringens were given an Escher label and color gradings..

There are many other Thuringens that fall well short of that level of polish, some are still good for razors but many others are not, how do you know which is which ???


Japanese water stones are graded the same way, the difference is that you have to trust the person selling the stone, if they know what is needed for razor use and how the stone performs.. If you throw money at a Japanese stone without a "Money Back Guarantee" for performance then it is your own fault if it doesn't work..

Natural stones do not have grit ratings, and the grit ratings that many attribute to them are simply outlandish any longer, I just read a post about 12k Chinese stones being not as good as the 15k Chinese stones and laughed until tears came to my eyes... There are some out there claming 50k Japanese stones also which is as laughable... Be suspect of people claming high numbers, as they can claim anything they want, there is no proof..

If it adds smoothness to a Norton 8k level finish IMO then it is a finisher...


Edit : Jeness was typing faster

You can't comapre Escher/Thuringian to a particular Jnat. As far as fineness of finishing you have to find a stone that is as fine or finer than an Escher/Thuringian, which is a a task on itself since all Jnats vary and none are exactly the same. On another hand Jnats are different stones than Escher/Thuringian , they have different make and work differently. Jnats produce slurry that breaks down to be come finer as you work it with the razor unlike any other natural stone as far as I know.

I'd reiterate above that in the end, you are better off going to maxim, alex (I have had great experience with alex's advice) or So (if you can order a stone from so while he's shipping). You'll get a stone that will be good that way.

You can definitely get cheap stones from fujibato that are good, but it is a game of odds. I have probably gotten 4 stones from fujibato, and one that he said was good for razors definitely is, but is not as easy to use as a stone that I got from alex (whose stones are just generally better stones), and I asked alex if I could go for max $$ toward performance and min $$ toward looks, and the price wasn't that much different from fujibato. The rest of the fujibato stones I got were for woodworking, though one would top a coticule in general, it had some surface issues that made it inexpensive that were fine for woodworking, but would've been annoying for razors.

Fujibato knows what he has. If you see a stone for $35, you might get lucky and get a very hard stone that is small with very fine grit, but one that doesn't have the cutting power of a more expensive stone. But if you have to get 3 or 4 to get one that satisfies you, you'll have nowhere to go with the other ones and it will be a lot of time and hassle.

The only other seller I've used is aframestokyo, and that was for a woodworking stone, an ozuku that was much different than a razor graded ozuku (it is still hard, but it is less dense and it is very fast). If I'd have been shopping for ozuku just as a name assuming I could use it on razors, I would have been very disappointed (i was secretly hoping it would be fine, it didn't say that it wasn't, but aframestokyo *does* have razor stones, and one would assume if the one I bought was appropriate for razors, it would've been more expensive and labeled as such).

So, even if you're an internet buyer who likes to wing it, this is really one area where you need to bite the bullet and play it safe and get a razor appropriate stone from a dealer who knows what razor appropriate is. My pearl of a little ugly duckling vintage barber stone from alex is still my favorite stone, and it was very inexpensive given what it is and what it can do.

Don't try to beat the system, the odds are against you.