Thread: Hone of the Day

New acquisition. A nice big slab of creamy Ozuku Awesado.

After reading how "advanced" a super hard Ozuku can be to hone on, I must have gotten lucky. My first honed edge was a nice little 5/8 Grah&Plumacher Blue steel Solingen piece. The resulting shave was one of the finest to date. I am in love with this stone.

Nice stone. I like how it is stamped on the side.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Nice stone. I like how it is stamped on the side.

Thanks.

I was somewhat hesitant to purchase this stone since I have read so much about the skill required to use a "LV 5++" stone. It is by far the hardest stone I have ever handled. Almost no water absorption and it is insanely fast. The above razor was straight off of my Mizukihara suita. I was unsure of the jump to the Ozuku so I started on it with Koma then on to my favorite Tomo, A Nakayama Asagi with a light slurry. Once it was popping hairs I rinsed the blade and the stone and gave it 10 very light passes with just straight water. The edge blew my hair back. This is a new experience for me and my new benchmark.

Been awhile since I've put steel to stone, so getting to put a fresh bevel on a near NOS blade, was a nice treat.

One layer of tape, and set the bevel with the ol' green brick. Next was a butterscotch Washita, to lock it in.

Then the polishing progression of a light blue, Thurigan.
A couple Coties, one slurried, one not.
And final finished on a blue/green Escher.

Thats a small bevel. Cant even see it in the pics.

Mystery Kamisory (NOS)
Mizukihara Tenjyo Suita
Hideriyama Suita tomo nagura

This is a virgin NOS mystery kamisori that was given to me by a friend. It had a light coating of surface rust that was easily removed with mineral oil and fine red scotchbrite. The geometry was pretty wonky but the omote was very flat and well ground. My first attempt at setting the bevel was with Botan but it just wasn't cutting fast enough so I switched to a new and unproven little Hideriyama suita tomo nagura. It is soft and grainy. Kicked up some serious mud with little effort and cut twice as fast as the Botan. The omote came in nicely but the ura required some creativity due to uneven voids in the soft iron steel. Took about an hour to set the bevel then on to botan. The kanji on that tomo was wiped out almost immediately.

Got a little sidetracked this summer, but it is time to get back to some projects. Here's my work area- on the 8k is a little W&B Celebrated. It started cutting arm hairs fairly quickly.

After that, I've got a few touch ups. Nothing serious for my first honing session in a while.

Interesting choice on the NeilMed bottle. How well does that work for you?
Nice tidy setup!

Ha, good eye. Yeah, I like that bottle, it works for me- it gives me just the amount of water I want. A spray bottle would work fine too, but I had that handy.

I'm not a very organized person usually, but it is nice having everything where you need it when honing.

Originally Posted by Straightandproud

This is a virgin NOS mystery kamisori that was given to me by a friend. It had a light coating of surface rust that was easily removed with mineral oil and fine red scotchbrite. The geometry was pretty wonky but the omote was very flat and well ground. My first attempt at setting the bevel was with Botan but it just wasn't cutting fast enough so I switched to a new and unproven little Hideriyama suita tomo nagura. It is soft and grainy. Kicked up some serious mud with little effort and cut twice as fast as the Botan. The omote came in nicely but the ura required some creativity due to uneven voids in the soft iron steel. Took about an hour to set the bevel then on to botan. The kanji on that tomo was wiped out almost immediately.

Just to clear up the terms here. If you look at the pic below, the dark sliver of hard steel on the bigger hollow side is the ura there is no soft iron there. The soft iron is on the omote side & pretty much the majority of the razor.