Nakayama Asagi stone

Hello gents. Ive been having some very good and very bad shaves off this stone.(jns stone, nakayama asagi lv5+) Its lapped, I have an asano set of naguras. botan tenjou and mejiro. I also have a tomo. Now whats been working is a bevel set, b, t and m progression. And tomo light slurries, no heavy sets, lots of circles with pressure to break it down. I dilute when the slurry turn grayish. Continue a bit and wash off, wash the blade off and next progression. I cant get this to finish on water only. As soon as it starts, the edge somehow gets killed. Im reaching for straws as I am not satisfied with what has worked so far. I get much better shaves (best edge I ever got IMO) off my shuobodani 100 stone also from jns. Same naguras, etc. But i think this stone has more potential. So what should I do at this point. When I try to extend the session to try something over like refreshing the slurry with the naguras or extending the time spent, I get a dud edge. I mean it shaves, plenty sharp but not smooth. Ive been honing almost a year and have no issues setting bevels, I get great edges off my suehiro gokumyo 20k, my SRD coti and another I purchased somewhere else I have no issues with. As well as my nainiwa 12k. Great shaves, sharp and smooth. Ive honed about 300 blades so I know Im not a pro or close by any means. Im looking for that whisker squeegee. I also just got a kouzaki 4.5 and a ozuku asagi 5+from JNS but I want to try to settle this one up if I can. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Stop diluting... Let the slurries go to a damp state almost dry.. and get super light on the strokes.. You will actually have too anyway or the blade will get sticky..

The rinse the stone and move to the next Nagura and repeat..

Now you could try a finish like this with just the slurry from the stone and see what happens, that is how I finish on mine, but some stones work better with the Nagura Progression of slurry..

Im thinking maybe less is more. Ive gotten my best shave after the progression and dmt slurry from the stone. But my shuobodani gave me a killer edge 3rd hone in, this ones got me scratchin my head for a month! I will just be patient and do as you suggested.

Make slurry and work it till it gets almost dry, then add some water and work it more. After all that raise more slurry and repeat, then strop and test.

The fact that you have success with some razors and not with others means you need more work on those that did not work out well, or they were not ready to go to the Nakayama.
My Jnats all make great edge if the razor is prepared correctly and I did enough on the stone.

My latest blade was honed on a chosera 1k 5k. Bevel was 100% set. And then botan tenjou mejiro and tomo. I can go to chosera 10 or naniwa 12k if you suggest. And progress from there.

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Originally Posted by bill3152

My latest blade was honed on a chosera 1k 5k. Bevel was 100% set. And then botan tenjou mejiro and tomo. I can go to chosera 10 or naniwa 12k if you suggest. And progress from there.

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Unfortunately is hard to judge how ready the razor is without actually seeing the razor. Try going to 10k synthetic then use only koma or mejiro slurry on the Jnat. Work the slurry till almost dry then add water work it more, then reaise new slurry on top of the old one and work it well.
I am curious what the edge looks like when you are done with the synthetics though.

Attachment 138002 Shave ready edge after 20k suehiro. Im not sure the image is postable here. 400x.

Hard to tell from the pics. The second one looks like the edge is not there yet. That white line there at the edge should not be present at all. If you can get it a bit more in focus and may be decrease the light intensity from the source the pic will be more clear.
Can you also post a pic after the Jnat?

I will work on this more as you are giving well accepted advice. Obviously you know much much more about these stones than I do. I will work the edge to 10k, then work the naguras almost dry as you have said.

Attachment 138005

Todays hone. sharp but not smooth 400x. Scratchy bevels are what I normally see even on well shaving razors with naturals. I just use them to look for well defined bevels. You may be able to see more.

I did a few blades. A progression after 10 k produces a very good even excellent edge. Anything under that does not. SO even with the naguras, the stone being fine and hard isnt capable of removing the amount of metal needed to refine a 5k edge in any reasonable time frame. I did one edge after the 20k and it was extrememly sharp and smooth. The best edge I got from that stone and it didnt take long at all. The light bulb went off and thanks again for your time and patience.

Awesome news

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Originally Posted by bill3152

I did a few blades. A progression after 10 k produces a very good even excellent edge. Anything under that does not. SO even with the naguras, the stone being fine and hard isnt capable of removing the amount of metal needed to refine a 5k edge in any reasonable time frame. I did one edge after the 20k and it was extrememly sharp and smooth. The best edge I got from that stone and it didnt take long at all. The light bulb went off and thanks again for your time and patience.

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I have Nakayama Asagi that will easily refine 5k if I use it with a diamond plate slurry. It is unusually fast & fine.
I have used others that will not do that in a month of Sundays. Horses for courses. It is good you seem to have a gentle polisher. You can get all the speed you need out of your synthetics.

I never use naguras on my Nakayama. I cannot see the point. When I come off any polishing hone 8-10 K and do 50 roundtrips on the Nakayama that is all I need. YMMV especially as no 2 Nakayamas are the same. When I start on the Nakayama the blade slides over it with some resistance. The resistance lessens after 10-40 strokes. When it slides over the Nakayama with negligible resistance you're home and dry.

Before I got my Shapton's I would finish after 12K, now it's 16K. My point being is that I will only put the razor to a finishing stone after a high grit synthetic. The razor is perfectly shave ready for anyone, just needs a bit of personality. I prefer a pretty crisp edge & my Nakayama Asagi will give me that. I prefer to use hard steels like custom razor's & New York steel on it, these are harder than most of the Sheffield steels I have experienced.

I'm with Kees, no slurry for me either...hone to dry with feather light touches on the last 10 or so.

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

I have Nakayama Asagi that will easily refine 5k if I use it with a diamond plate slurry. It is unusually fast & fine.
I have used others that will not do that in a month of Sundays. Horses for courses. It is good you seem to have a gentle polisher. You can get all the speed you need out of your synthetics.

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I was working on this stone for a month. The naguras work great with it. I couldnt use it with straight water til I realized it wasnt ready as it skipped. I do get light resistance when I start on water only but it goes away quickly. Its a shavette sharp edge and smooth for as sharp as it is. HHT root in or out if you use that. I set one on a chosera 1k, kouzaki with botan, tenjou and mejiro, then ozuku same naguras and nakayama same but with koma and tomo. Its wasnt better than the edge I get off a synthetic progression and the nakayama though. The kouzaki as a finisher leaves a coti like edge. The ozuku (level 4.5 as per maksim) gives a comparable edge to the nakayama.

One other question for you Oz. Is there a specific type of stone that is more capable than a nakayama asagi as a hard finisher? Now I know they are all different but they share similar enough characteristics to be grouped together. Im talking about razor hones as I know there are chisel and knife stones as well. My stone is a Nakayama Mizu Asagi 5+ from JNS so I take Maksims word for it as he is very reputable. And I know they have to be worked to realize their potential. I worked on that one for over a month.

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Originally Posted by bill3152

One other question for you Oz. Is there a specific type of stone that is more capable than a nakayama asagi as a hard finisher? Now I know they are all different but they share similar enough characteristics to be grouped together. Im talking about razor hones as I know there are chisel and knife stones as well. My stone is a Nakayama Mizu Asagi 5+ from JNS so I take Maksims word for it as he is very reputable. And I know they have to be worked to realize their potential. I worked on that one for over a month.

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I am not Oz, but I'd suggest very hard Ozuko

I have ozuku asagi San lv 5+ and it produces the same edge as the nakayama.

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Originally Posted by bill3152

I have ozuku asagi San lv 5+ and it produces the same edge as the nakayama.

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Then you are at the point where you may need to try a bunch of lvl5+ hones and see what you like best. It looks like you are not quite happy with your stone?

I am very happy with my edges off my stones. I just wanted to be with a stone that has the highest potential and I see that is what I have now.

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Originally Posted by bill3152

One other question for you Oz. Is there a specific type of stone that is more capable than a nakayama asagi as a hard finisher? Now I know they are all different but they share similar enough characteristics to be grouped together. Im talking about razor hones as I know there are chisel and knife stones as well. My stone is a Nakayama Mizu Asagi 5+ from JNS so I take Maksims word for it as he is very reputable. And I know they have to be worked to realize their potential. I worked on that one for over a month.

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Bill, an 8k Norton in Glenn or Lynn's hands may be more "capable" than the best Jnat in someone else's hands. :p

You can't generally rate a stone's capability from the mine it came from but I think you'll find almost any hard finisher from Nakayama, Oozuku & Shobu-Dani mines will do the job in the right hands.
The process may be slightly different between various stones but the edges should all be within a similarly high standard providing it is a good stone.

Seems to me we are looking for the holy grail of hones again. You get best results by working with a good hone time and again. You really need to get to know your hone well to get the killer edge you want.

I have gotten excellent shave ready edges off the norton8, chosera10, naniwas 12, lapping film, suehiro gokumyo 20k, 2 out of 3 cotis(one is IMO a tool or knife stone), and all of my jnats. All of my naturals have been worked many different ways, slurry no slurry, dmt slurry water, mineral oil etc. Each new hone has brought me something. Ive tried many different pastes also, crox ,diamond paste, dia slurry, cbn etc and Ive tried them on different mediums, balsa,leather,hard felt, hanging and bench strop. So as I move through the buffet of hones, Ive realized I like all of them, but really like my jnats. So I can say I would never buy another coti, as the edge produced is certainly shave ready but not as sharp as a jnat.

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Originally Posted by bill3152

... Ive been honing almost a year and have no issues setting bevels, I get great edges off my suehiro gokumyo 20k, my SRD coti and another I purchased somewhere else I have no issues with. As well as my nainiwa 12k. Great shaves, sharp and smooth. Ive honed about 300 blades so I know Im not a pro or close by any means. Im looking for that whisker squeegee. I also just got a kouzaki 4.5 and a ozuku asagi 5+from JNS but I want to try to settle this one up if I can. ...

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I congratulate with you and I envy you your time and skills for getting such results in 1 year.
It took me some years to get 300 honed blades and I feel I only master (not perfectly) my 8ks and naniwa 12k. I'm still trying to understand my escher, coti and jnats. Recently I got a wonderful edge (nani 12k) on my TI and had the idea to give a try with my nakajama, the result was WOW. Then I was thinking that I was finally mastering that nakayama and decided to try with a nasty Le Grelot directly after nani 8k. Sadly I dulled the Le Grelot :banghead:

I found my cotis to be very easy. Well 2 of them are great performers, another I have I believe was a knife stone(uneducated guess) as it doesn't deliver as well as the other 2. The scratch pattern on that one is noticeably more coarse than my others and the shave quality isn't there or at least I haven't found it yet. I like using both sides after a chosera 1k. The bbw side does a fine job of prefinishing before the yellow. Great shaves, just doesn't have the zip I get from my jnats. I will have to find an Escher, as I have never used one or shaved off one before.

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Originally Posted by Sterm

I congratulate with you and I envy you your time and skills for getting such results in 1 year.
It took me some years to get 300 honed blades and I feel I only master (not perfectly) my 8ks and naniwa 12k. I'm still trying to understand my escher, coti and jnats. Recently I got a wonderful edge (nani 12k) on my TI and had the idea to give a try with my nakajama, the result was WOW. Then I was thinking that I was finally mastering that nakayama and decided to try with a nasty Le Grelot directly after nani 8k. Sadly I dulled the Le Grelot :banghead:

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have you tried after 12k? If it worked with one razor why not try the same process with another? Good Jnat are very fine, but if they also happen to be slow cutters then it will be hard to get an 8k edge further in any reasonable time.

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Originally Posted by Kees

Seems to me we are looking for the holy grail of hones again. You get best results by working with a good hone time and again. You really need to get to know your hone well to get the killer edge you want.

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I agree. I don't think it's so much, "The right stone in the right hands" as it is, Getting to know the stone, and learning it's capabilities. It just takes time.
Too many guys bounce around and buy stone after stone, and never really learn to use them.

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Originally Posted by mainaman

have you tried after 12k? If it worked with one razor why not try the same process with another? Good Jnat are very fine, but if they also happen to be slow cutters then it will be hard to get an 8k edge further in any reasonable time.

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That's what I'm going to try, but I was not expecting such a critical behavior from my nakayama and still find it hard to understand because after 8k the razor do was shave ready (shave test).:shrug:

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Originally Posted by Sterm

That's what I'm going to try, but I was not expecting such a critical behavior from my nakayama and still find it hard to understand because after 8k the razor do was shave ready (shave test).:shrug:

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In that case maybe you honed too much. ?

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Originally Posted by Sterm

That's what I'm going to try, but I was not expecting such a critical behavior from my nakayama and still find it hard to understand because after 8k the razor do was shave ready (shave test).:shrug:

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If the stone would improve a 12k edge and not improve an 8k edge, then you probably did not spend enough time on the nakayama.
In any case experiment to see what works best and most consistently and stick with it.

It took me some years to get 300 honed blades and I feel I only master (not perfectly) my 8ks and naniwa 12k. I'm still trying to understand my escher, coti and jnats. Recently I got a wonderful edge (nani 12k) on my TI and had the idea to give a try with my nakajama, the result was WOW. Then I was thinking that I was finally mastering that nakayama and decided to try with a nasty Le Grelot directly after nani 8k. Sadly I dulled the Le Grelot

My best edges from my nakayama are after 10k and higher synthetic or a one hour 3 jnat full nagura progression. Listen to Stefan as his advise was what got me to shave ready with it. He kept telling me he didn't think the edge was ready for the stone, and he was 100% right. I know my stone isn't capable of a quick finish off a 5k synthetic as I tried it and it didn't work numerous times. Keep trying different things. Don't keep doing what doesn't work. Mix it up and see where it gets you. Time and patience is our friend as we will only fail when we give up.

This thread is loaded with valuable info and opinions. Great stuff for honers who wish to move beyond their Norton 8k & nani12k . etc. Very inspirational.

I just hauled out my little stone with the intention of finally getting a good edge on one of my razors. I had it (Tosuke razor) honed to 3-micron aluminium oxide film, since I was too lazy to take it further than that, and then switched to my Wakasa with mejiro and a Nakayama nagura. Worked OK but didn't seem all that interesting, and did pretty poorly on the HHT, considering I was getting OK results off the film at that stage.

Wasn't sure if it was degrading the edge or simply smoothing/polishing the 3-micron edge to be less ragged, so I got out my granite and some 1-micron diamond film, and after a few strokes I was seeing a good bit of swarf, and the 1-micron just wiped away all the scratches from the Wakasa/Nakayama. It also began doing HHT very easily...3cm away from the fingers, root-in. Went to 0.5-micron diamond film with dish soap and water, and it mostly retained the HHT performance. Tried a cheek with it and it seemed fine, but maybe a bit catchy on the skin.

At that stage, I considered two courses of action. One, I could use some 0.1 CBN on linen to perhaps clean the edge up a bit, or I could give the Wakasa another go. Opted for the latter, and did a bit of work with tomonagura slurry. Lost HHT performance pretty quickly, which was really discouraging, though the razor seemed to cut hair pretty well. Kept working the slurry down until it was almost dry, then just added a drop or two of water to keep it going. Worked it down some more and did a test. Got HHT back, though not as catchy as the film edges had been. Washed off the stone and did a second tomo nagura set, working it down just like the first time. Seemed to enhance the edge a bit, and HHT performance was respectable but still not quite like I got with film, which admittedly might have performed well due to invisible toothiness. The interesting bit was on the back of my hand and my forearm, a light drag against the skin didn't seem as grabby.

Did I refine a 0.5-micron edge? I don't know, and my microscope pics don't help me much. Maybe I degraded or rounded the edge, or maybe I achieved that elusive "smoothness" thing. Still, I'm pretty happy I was able to produce a nice edge with my Wakasa.

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Originally Posted by Sterm

I congratulate with you and I envy you your time and skills for getting such results in 1 year.
It took me some years to get 300 honed blades and I feel I only master (not perfectly) my 8ks and naniwa 12k. I'm still trying to understand my escher, coti and jnats. Recently I got a wonderful edge (nani 12k) on my TI and had the idea to give a try with my nakajama, the result was WOW. Then I was thinking that I was finally mastering that nakayama and decided to try with a nasty Le Grelot directly after nani 8k. Sadly I dulled the Le Grelot :banghead:

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I am in the same boat. I have a TI that time and again is dulled by my Nakayama. It is one of those idiosyncrasies of honing.