Thread: Honyama Awase Toishi

Ok guys

TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY STONE !!!

This one is mine and only mine
I have just bought it from rgdominguez
I am really looking for ward to it

I have one of those stones and they are indeed excellent stones... with some caveats. First, the quality of the stone. These stones often look like they've been rough quarried with only one surface that's decent. The corners are often chipped, there are veins running through them, the Japanese themselves say the stones are uneven in hardness across the stone and that "you should get to know your stone and use the hard parts and soft parts for different uses" which just sounds like marketing spin to me for a lower quality stone deposit. My honyama has the chisel marks on the back from where it was hacked out of the mountain.

Second, these stones are harder than coticules and thus need a nagura for starting a slurry. I find them slower to hone due to the hardness of the underlying phyllite or mudstone. Then there's the price. It's usually way more than a coticule and more akin to the prices going for Eschers on eBay these days. Question is: do you want to pay that much more and not get a better edge than can be produced by a coticule or Escher? I keep one of these Japanese stones in my study collection and use it from time to time.

I also have a rather large stone which came from a collection of a hone collector from the Midwest who died and he claimed it was brought back from japan after WW2 and that it was from a swordsmithy. I took this with my usual grain of salt until I saw the exact same color stone in the move "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise. It's in the scene when he's in the mountain village after his capture and the camera pans by a swordsmith making a sword. If you can stop the DVD right there, you'll see this kind of stone. I paid good money for it and it really does sharpen well but it is one gnarly stone... just like the honyamas currently being sold.

Now, I know the guy who you are talking about - the honemeister from Florida - and yes, he loves that stone but only for certain razors. He, like me, has found that certain razors react really well to certain stones and not to others. As much depends on the steel and the heat treatment as on the stone. You can only push a steel so far and then it won't exceed the parameters of it's structure and you won't be able to get a sharper edge no matter what stone you use.

The steel is not produced by a commercial entity. The forgers are Master Forgers called Living Treasures in Japan. There are living treasures in all the forms of artisan crafts practiced in Japan. The knives are so expensive because of all the work and expertise involved in forging the steel. Many of these forgers are ancient themselves, being 80 years old or better. The Japanese knife value is not in the fancy handles of the west but rather the steel. Sometines, they use ebony and a bit of silver but generally the knives have a plain wooden handle made from a tree that grows in bogs there. Lynn knows of one called Master Takeda who forges some of the blades that Maestro Livi makes into razors. He has graciously ordered a razor of this type for me, I can't wait to get it!

All natural products are variable, tempermental and endowed with phenominal character! But think of it, honing one's razor with the stone that once sharpened the swords of the Samurai! I don't know, but it does something for my aging libido. like the sands of the desert, Casablanca, all that stuff that us old ones come back to!!!

As a former iaido student, I'm intrigued by having a historical tie to the Japanese sword smiths and the tools they used. If I ever got back to it, I might consider getting one for my sword

I wonder if that takeda is the same one who makes all sorts of bladed tools? I have some of his knives if that is the case but they are obviously hand forged (using aogami bought from hitachi like every other Japanese knife maker I've bought from as making your own high quality steel would be too expensive and time consuming and would also result in a lower quality product in most cases.)

Unfortunately he doesn't speak English afaik and doesn't have any method of buying online. You have to contact him through someone who translates for him. Very good to deal with and he sells waterstones (up into the tens of thousands of dollars each iirc.)

Murph, if we think that we're nuts, imagine the people who pay tens of thousands of dollars for a stone! But really, they're not nuts no more than someone paying hungreds of thousands of doaalrs for a ferrari on several carat diamond. It's all in what you value. In case anyone else would like to peruse Master Takeda's site, the link is: http://shop.niimi.okayama.jp/kajiya/en/index_e.html

Yes, that's the same takeda I've bought from in the past. <br/>
I would be scared to use a waterstone that cost thousands of dollars. I'd be thinking that's a $5 touch up or a $20 lapping.
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Takeda's prices for knives are very good in general though and you can even have them tailored to your personal preferences if you willing to wait. The only problem for us are the taxes, postal handling charges and bank transfer costs all add a considerable amount to everything that's imported from outside Europe.

Not really Rich,

It was not a bad stone by any means, but for the money, I'll take my Escher.

Lynn

The original quarries that produced the really old ancient Japanese sharpening stones are pretty much mined out. If you are ever in Tokyo and get to the University of Tokyo their Mineralogy Dept has one of the best mineral collections in the world. They have samples of some of these really old stones and really high quality.(I've seen them) Are they really better than a coticule or esher stone. personally I doubt it. The reason you are paying so much for them is because they are rare and the ones being produced now are not nearly as good as the real old ones (sorry guys). Does that mean they aren't good? No not at all. Like everything else you pays your money and yous takes your chances.