Thread: Jnat finishing ideas

Totally agree, the finer it is the longer you stay on it. That's great advice because I have never owned a fast stone, or soft. I sought out hard, fine stones, 9's on Takeshi's scale of fineness, so my first few sessions on the jnat I was finished before I was finished, as you rightly point out. I've got a few hours this afternoon, so I'm going to work on one of my carbon steel blades, and just do a little honing. It's lucky I really enjoy it, so I'll see if the slurry breaks down, below any levels I may have encountered before. Thanks. Bob

I've used a hour or so with my Wakasa hone and a Dovo 6/8. (the photo of the hone is at hone of the day, page 182) and just sat down relaxed and spent some time on a carbon steel Dovo 6/8 thumb notch razor. It was bought to the Wakasa from a Naniwa 8k. Like on my others I created a diamond slurry with the Atoma 1200, but I didn't make it too thin or with too much water. I just did x strokes, covering the toe and heel with some torquing as needed. I let this slurry dry out a little, and just maintained it for a good half hour. The blade feedback got a little grabby, so at that point I rinsed the razor, gradually diluting and reducing the slurry to what we might call misty. I stayed on it at that level for another 7 or so mins. I could feel the stiction quite strongly, so effectively I lessened it off pressure wise to finish.
Long story, but I did spend a lot of time on it, more than on any other razor or jnat.
So I stropped and just now had a shave. A 'wow' moment, not quite, but it was an edge I would like to shave with again, one I'd not think, of needing more. It was good to go. I always think, that an edge is good, if you felt you were to be able to give it to another shaver as 'your work' and be confident it would get a tick of approval. So I thank you guys for putting those ideas forward, the time spent issue has really helped. When you think of finishing on a synthetic you think of a dozen strokes, well on these super fine naturals, if you counted strokes it would be hundreds and of course no pressure.

Originally Posted by bobski

There is lots to take in with natural stones and their use. That edge is ok, I think, coming from Suehiro 20k edges I maybe had a different idea of what I could expect from my naturals. Never the less, it's fun to to,learn from these experiences. Thanks for the input, but I still have a lot to learn.

You should be able to get the same keenness without the harshness if you have a natural and a good linen. I found a natural stone and chrome ox to beat the gok at its own game and sold my gok pretty quickly.

I can tell that edge in the picture hasn't seen a good linen. A good linen makes the edge look slightly worse under a scope but it will shave much sharper and smoother.

I don't think that it should take a long time on a jnat finisher generally speaking. It may help to think about what's going on.

Jnats are naturals, and so there are fast ones, slow ones, fine ones, hard ones, soft ones, you get the idea.

There are hard razors, not-so-hard razors, extreme hollow razors, half hollows, then there are machetes like the gold Dollars.

If I have a hard fine stone that isn't that fast - and this is not a bad thing BTW - and I have a hollow razor with hard steel, it may take longer, maybe twice as long because I can't use much pressure with the hollow razor. Now if I have a fast finisher and a Gold Dollar, I can use 2-3x the pressure without distorting the edge plus the fast stone cuts the honing time even more.

In the first case, the hollow razor with hard steel, if I want to reduce the time I have to spend on the finisher there are some options. I come off my 8k and go to koma, and most koma have a lot of grit in them, the slurry darkens very quickly. This helps remove synthetic scratches and gets me closer to the scratch pattern that the finisher produces. I used to go from 5k to koma without any noticeable difference.

Diamond plate slurry is usually more aggressive than tomo slurry, so I could substitute diamond slurry for koma and know people that do since good koma is not something you can usually just go out and buy these days.

Another thing I could do is go to a 10-12k stone before the finisher escpecially if the finisher is a slower polishing type stone. This obviously reduces the scratch depth and so the time it takes for a given finisher to remove them.

So I think it is a mistake to assume that you need to necessarily spend a lot of time on the finisher in many cases.

Cheers, Steve

Agreed on all accounts there Steve, with a caveat. "Long" is a relative term. As you rightly pointed out, there's a lot of variables, the biggest one being the stone (especially when it's someone else's stone LOL). When people ask me how long I spend on this and that stone (nagura included), I can't give a definite answer. Just "I hone until I'm done" type of answer, with helpful tips of course, on how to know what's done. I usually go by the scratches and keenness, I don't really know any other way. I compare the results of the last stone VS the current in "done" state. If my keenness improved, I move on. If not, I may try again on the same stone. If still no improvement, I know I did something wrong.. so usually then go two steps back. It doesn't happen often, but that is the recipe in general.