Thread: Honing on a Kitayama - my 1st... I need your opinions?

It's all about nomenclature. If you look for japanese natural stones, you'll find that they aren't listed by a "grit" rating, but with names such as Aoto, nakayama, etc. The Kitayama stone was developed to be a synthetic stone with a more natural feel. This was achieved by taking the chips and other stone fragments from natural quarries and grinding them, then mixing that material with other abrasives in a binder to hold it all together as a stone.

You'll find this stone listed as the Kitayama 8k, the Ice Bear 10k or the Kitayama 12k. So the 12k is an 8k is a 10k.

"How is that?", you ask. Well, plain and simple, the kitayama wasn't designed for straight razor sharpening. Finishing on a slurry isn't a good idea for straight razors, as it just doens't work too well. But, using a slurry mud when knife sharpening is good. That's why they have nagura stones; you need a good slurry. Because of the natural abrasives in the Kitayama, the stone is friable. That means that as you use the abrasive, it fractures and chips and the abrasives become smaller abrasives, imparting a finer finish and earning a higher grit rating.

The kitayama, when used for knives, starts out like an 8k, but as the mud builds up, it works like a 12k. Average the two, and you also can call it a 10k. Whatever moniker you apply to it, the Kitayama 12k doesn't have as fine of an abrasive as lets say the naniwa 12k, due to the fact that the naniwa starts and remains at 12k, while the kitayama starts at 8k and finishes at 12k, but you have to make some mud.

That said, I do think it's better than the Norton 8k, and when used with proper technique should yield a decent shave.

Maybe JimR can make a bawdy limerick explaining it