Thread: Playing with a Jnat

Another thing you might wanna try..

Your stone may be slow in the cutting department.

When you make each Nagura slurry also add some DMT slurry to the mix . This might help speed up the whole process and give more noticeable results.

Originally Posted by Gasman

I did 3 passes on the 20K as Oz said. The keenness level jumped up like a rocket! 3 laps. I would never have thought it would take such a little amount to make such a big difference.
Hate to say I toldja so You can get there with a Jnat, maybe not with yours but your further testing will show you what it can or can't do.

Now, I feel its not a true Jnat edge but I learn something new.
With all the razors I've honed I've come to the conclusion that if you have the edge at it's optimum it doesn't matter how you got there. I really can't tell any difference in the sharpness or comfort. I know a lot of guys will say their coticule or Jnat edge is super comfortable compared to a synthetic but another guy using the same razor could say it's not as sharp as he likes. So one hones to one's liking but if you take an edge to it's smallest usable width the micron size is the same however you got there.

With this razor being my first real attempt to learn the Jnat it most likely wasn't as far as I could have gone to start with. So I think this was a great learning experience with only 3 laps. Hoping I will get some time in the next two days to do more testing and get more time on the Nagura/Jnat to take another step closer to understanding.

And so the hunt begins
Oh btw you don't need to spend 5k on a top tier Jnat. $500 ballpark, can buy you the best razor size stone, just not the prettiest. My Nakayama Asagi was $230 10 years ago but its less than 1/2" thick

Thanks for the replys. Hoping tomorrow i can get some good time on the stone. I have a few tests to do to see where my stone is in ability to start with. Ive been asking questions, watching vids and taking notes so i have a good feeling about this. It fun learning stones when you have an understanding. It wasnt that long ago i really didnt have much of a clue besides keep honing and hope for the best. Lol.

Today I started by making a slurry with a fine diamond card and worked it with a Boker. Made some more slurry and worked that even longer. Thinking that I would get to polishing in the end with the surry on the last time thru. I did the same thing with my Tomo slurry and another identical Boker razor. Test shaved a bit and couldn't tell much difference. If anything the Base stone had a little better edge. So this makes me think my base stone is harder than my Tomo and a finished slurry should be raised with the diamond card.

I then took one of the Bokers and went back to an 8k stone for 50 laps. It added scratches to the bevel as its not a Snow White 8K.
Went to the Botan, and worked my way up the nagura. On Botan, I made a slurry twice and worked it up to around 50 laps. Then moved to the next Nagura. I did this thru the rest of the Nagura including the Tomo. Then made a slurry with the diamond card and worked that surry about 50 laps. Cleaned it up and tested. Not keen enough. Did some more on base stone slurry and still not enough. Third time to the base stone slurry and worked it until it was almost clear water. Stropped and now I have a keen edge. I think! As I've also run out of whiskers to test on. LOL. But it is grabbing Arm hairs.

So now this will need to wait for a day or two. It passes the arm hair test and looks nice and straight on the scope. I'm finding very fine stria with my scope that has come from the base stone slurry. It's hard to see as the hazy finish is on top of it but I can see it. It's not from the 8K that's for sure.

I'm now going to try and go from a 20K edge straight to the diamond slurry and see what that gives me. As if using the Shobu as just a finisher.

I also did the 41 or so lap test that Alex uses on Youtube. The Ax method. It does seem to be the minimum needed to go from one Nagura to another.

If anyone has any opinions or other tests I should try, I'm all ears. I have found keen but it took a lot of work to get there. I don't think it should take so much time to get to where the edge grabs hairs, but I could be wrong.

You can get a very sharp smooth edge from one slurry after a 5k or so. Tomo or diamond plate slurry. 8k to botan is like going from 8k to 1k.

Thanks for that. I didn't know the Botan was that low of a grit. If you had to put a grit to it. Ha. I guess I removed any 8K stria than didn't I.

I just tested the theory. I had a Razor that had a good sized chip in the edge. I knew this was going to need some work to get the chip out and go back to the 1K to do it. So I killed the edge and started with Botan. After a couple of slurrys, I checked with the scope and killed the edge again. Did this 3 times and the chip was gone. Cleaned and lapped the stone and did the Botan again. Passes the TNT! Worked my way thru the other Nagura stones. Finished on Base stone slurry and stropped. Popping hairs and chip gone. Now I will need to test shave it. It feels good. Maybe not as good as the last one but close,

This was a good test. Now I know it can be done from the Bevel set. Although the bevel angle was set already so it was just working the steel back a little but it did the job!

Time for another or two.

Oh so close. I did another one from start to finish. I had got the razor as shave ready but you know how that goes. But, everyone has there own idea of what shave ready is. This one I cut back on the amount of time on each Nagura and it still came out to the same ending. Keen but not popping hairs like I think it could. I even went back and tested my Tomo and Diamond slurrys again hoping I had it backward. Nope. The diamond card on the base stone is getting me more by a touch.

I've cut back to 45 to 50 laps and I'm starting to feel when the slurry is starting to give up its cutting ability. It sure is the slightest feeling. But, I'm not hearing it. Tried stropping between the new slurrys and I didn't see any difference there. I will continue this step for a while for testing reasons. So, here is my last edge. Looks good, just needs a little more.



I think it's possible I'm not getting as good of a bevel set on these last two. I mean I'm not used to bevel setting with a Nagura. This would keep my edge from getting as keen as possible. So the next one I do I will be sure to set the bevel on the Green Brick. Maybe go up to 5K then switch. This has been a fun learning experience. Anyone else wanting to try a Jnat I'm here to say it takes some testing to figure things out, but it's not magic. Just keep your mind open and learn as you go. And I'd recommend knowing how to hone on synthetic well first! Hope this thread will help someone and I'm not typing just for my own benefit, and post count.

What I found that works great after a few years of playing around with complicated naguras is 1k to mid-range stone. (Softer Nakayama iromono) with diamond plate slurry. Work that and then spray the broken slurry off onto my finisher. It goes right to polish at that point. Simple. Works every time. Your comfort range is affected by the amount of slurry you finish on. More will be slightly less keen. Very little will lead to a zippier edge. Clean flax linen and then cordovan. Prove or disprove everything on your bench. And most importantly you have to believe your own eyes.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Thanks for that. I didn't know the Botan was that low of a grit. If you had to put a grit to it. Ha. I guess I removed any 8K stria than didn't I.

How fine a nagura slurry gets after hours of honing is anybody's guess but the grit size of any Asano type nagura is always larger than a jnat finisher so a diamond plate slurry of your base stone is always finer to start with.