Thread: Honyama Awase Toishi

I see there are different ones, what is the different between them?
They start at 300$ and goes up to 500$
What is the different?

Rich,
That is a beautiful stone but look at all the cracks, inclusions and stains. I may now have a market for all the Hunsruecks I reject for the same reason (35% are useless)!!! <g>

Just kidding. I am familar with these from a few woodworker friends and know this is typical of the type.

Tony

I've only my natural waterstones on Japanese knives as they seem to suit the pattern/haze left on the steel. Too much trouble for me I'm afraid. Variable grit and hardness along with the difficulty finding someone who will sell you a decent stone at a reasonable price. Maybe if I was very good at sharpening and had access to someone in Japan who knows these things...

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

Here is one of my Honyama Awase Toishi stones. I have three, this one being highly figured. It's really beautiful, I don't know, the thought of shaving with a razor honed on the same stone used by the ancient Samurai warriors is just too alluring and romantic for me to resist!

Interesting looking stone, too bad it has the crack in it

There is no crack. It is a natural vein of orange color. If you scratch over it with a razor or fingernail, you can't feel a thing. These stones are multi-colored in this way, very different from Belgian and Escher hones. I've used them for years on sushi knives and love them. The famous sushi chefs wouldn't use anything else!

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

There is no crack. It is a natural vein of orange color. If you scratch over it with a razor or fingernail, you can't feel a thing. These stones are multi-colored in this way, very different from Belgian and Escher hones. I've used them for years on sushi knives and love them. The famous sushi chefs wouldn't use anything else!

Glad to hear it isn't cracked, it looks very nice, not much of a sushi guy. I wonder if the sushi chefs have tried an escher or coticule?

The steel that sushi knives are made from is very hard carbon steel. The Shiro-ko or White Steel has about 8% carbon in it and the Ao-ko or blue steel has over 10% carbon in it, much higher than any European steel which have about 1% carbon in them. I think that they would probably tear up the soft European stones. The fascinating thing is that these stones are hard but with a very fine polishing grit, upwards of 12000. I didn't make the connection with razors at first, the obvious is hard to see sometimes! But when an experienced honer I know who has many Belgian and Escher stones in his collection told me that by far he prefers his Honyama Awase Toishi stone to any other hone, the truth dawned on me. I tried it and was amazed at the results!

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

The steel that sushi knives are made from is very hard carbon steel. The Shiro-ko or White Steel has about 8% carbon in it and the Ao-ko or blue steel has over 10% carbon in it, much higher than any European steel which have about 1% carbon in them. I think that they would probably tear up the soft European stones. The fascinating thing is that these stones are hard but with a very fine polishing grit, upwards of 12000. I didn't make the connection with razors at first, the obvious is hard to see sometimes! But when an experienced honer I know who has many Belgian and Escher stones in his collection told me that by far he prefers his Honyama Awase Toishi stone to any other hone, the truth dawned on me. I tried it and was amazed at the results!

Are you sure about those figures? I would have thought that kind of carbon content would be problematic

The knives I own that are hitachi steel are mostly blue super steel, slightly higher content than aogami or blue steel #1 and they are only around 1.5% afaik. This is lower than many of the crucible particle metallurgy and zdp steels.

I'm quite sure about the %'s I quoted. It is tough to achieve, that's why the knives are painstakingly hand forged over and over again. These knives are totally hand forged blades and I sold one for $2,000.00 to a sushi chef buddy of mine. He was glad to get it seeing that the retail is several hundred dollars more! Please see the link

http://www.japanese-knife.com/Mercha...ry_Code=HMA-MA

Note that the left handed version is 50% more expensive!!

I'd like to know which company's steel this is and how they go about making it as it sounds different. The only rough details on content I could find about blue steel are
http://www.fine-tools.com/stemjap.htm
http://spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/steelchart.html
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cg...0;t=000750;p=0

It isn't listed here http://ajh-knives.com/metals.html
which is a good place for common steel content percentages.

Aren't these knives very brittle with a higher cabon content than cast iron?