Thread: nakayama maruka vs Uchigumori?

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Hi Kevin,

I use western planes.

Correct me if I am wrong. The stone I need is a hard(how hard?), that is very fine and smooth?



.

Are your blades A2 or carbon. I have been a little disappointed with my particular Nakayama on A2 steel. Actualy, the little coticule I just got seems to finish them off better. I was hoping for more performance out of the Nakayama on A2 but might just be my particular stone. Works great on carbon steel razors and tools.
Mike

Originally Posted by Kingfish

Are your blades A2 or carbon. I have been a little disappointed with my particular Nakayama on A2 steel. Actualy, the little coticule I just got seems to finish them off better. I was hoping for more performance out of the Nakayama on A2 but might just be my particular stone. Works great on carbon steel razors and tools.
Mike

Hi Mike, my blade isn't A2. That I do know. My blades
have been hardened to 62,63 Rc or so.

What difference does the hardness of steel make in
sharpening? Harder steel, harder hone necessary?

From my experience the harder hone does not mean it is necessary for harder steels. I can sharpen my Japanese gouges on some relatively soft Japanese synthetics. They are rated higher than western steels, maybe even around R65 ish. They are going to wear faster and are easier to use from my experience. With a flat plane blade, stone hardness is not something you have to have. Having said that, I could understand why you would want a very hard stone that cuts relatively quick, that takes your honing skills to te limit, just be prepaired to pay for it cause they seem to be the ones that are most rare and most desired. The mentioned vendors can definitley help you if you tell them what you want and in the long run will more than likely save you money not having to get random stones that are not to your liking.
Mike

That Ozuku Asagi looks mighty mighty nice

I own a Ohzuku Kiita *adore*

Check this guy out - 330mate.com. He sells a ton of stones out of Japan for the purpose of sharpening chisels and planes, knives and swords. I recently bought 2 damascus chefs knives from him off of ebay. They were shipped in decent time, in good condition and as described. His communication is a bit poor, but his products are good.

Here is a link to his ebay store:

Shop eBay Canada Store - Japanese tools whetstone for sword:: Hi class, Yamawaku

Here is a link to his website:

天然ç¥çŸ³ æ„›åª›ã€€ä¼Šè±«éŠ˜ç¥ ã‚�ã�Œå›½åˆ�ã�®å¤©ç„¶ç¥çŸ³

Now, his website is quite difficult to understand becasue it in Japanese for the most part. But, what I did was use Google Translate to figure things out on his site.
Google Translate

Anyway, I thought I would share. I hope this can help you out.

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Hi Mike, my blade isn't A2. That I do know. My blades
have been hardened to 62,63 Rc or so.

What difference does the hardness of steel make in
sharpening? Harder steel, harder hone necessary?

The hardness of steel can span the hardness of common natural minerals.
Depending on how the steel was annealed and tempered
R62+ can be too hard for quartz rich hones. Coticule hones
have garnets as the cutting component. Garnets can scratch
quartz and can scratch hardened steel better than quartz.

Very hard steel is also brittle and reacts to sharpening in unexpected ways.

I do not know what the cutting mineral in J-nats is.

The hardness of hones is often a feeling for how the hone releases
its cutting minerals. i.e. how hard the matrix is that holds the cutting
minerals.

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Hi Mike, my blade isn't A2. That I do know. My blades
have been hardened to 62,63 Rc or so.

What difference does the hardness of steel make in
sharpening? Harder steel, harder hone necessary?

That sounds hard for vintage English and American tools. I may be way off there, 60 would surprise me.

Something that I do not see enough of are Scandinavian. My general impression is these were made harder than english_ish stuff. (unsure)True?

One basic matching steel/stone maxim I have always read is hard steel; soft stone. Soft steel; hard stone. I wouldn't take that to the extreme. I guess it is related to Nify's point about binder and abrasive loosing.

Originally Posted by kevint

That sounds hard for vintage English and American tools. I may be way off there, 60 would surprise me.

Something that I do not see enough of are Scandinavian. My general impression is these were made harder than english_ish stuff. (unsure)True?

One basic matching steel/stone maxim I have always read is hard steel; soft stone. Soft steel; hard stone. I wouldn't take that to the extreme. I guess it is related to Nify's point about binder and abrasive loosing.

That makes total sense to me Kevin. Maybe that is why the Holy Grail of hones is a superman stone that is hard a hell, cuts wicked fast and finishes super fine. I do think there are hones like that out there but most of us will never see them. Most of us will at least find functional compromises that are really pretty good in there own right and will make us satisfied.

I *believe* the hard steel - soft stone corelation refers not to the cutting agent itself, but to the binder and it refers much more to natural stones than synthetics.

If you have a very hard steel it will be reluctant to be abraded.
Therefore you have to either increase the pressure or the speed of the abrasive action.
Or you will have to increase the amount of cutting particles.

If a stone is bond soft, it will release many particles during the sharpening process, making the cutting process easyer.
That´s why softer stones propably will cut faster with harder steels,
than harder stones do

There are very few minerals that actually are softer or not significantly harder than 65HRC steel.
Not all of them are able to cut all the carbides in steel,
but this would be useless, anyway, as they will break out during use

Regardless of what I may have said in the past about wood handtoolers needing, using super sharp edges, my razors are still the sharpest things I use.

Perhaps that has as much to do with the very low angle as ultimate edge dimension. And sometimes such a fine edge is not needed. Yet, there is nothing that I have found to suggest that a razor requires something more, finer or higher quality than what a hand planning, joining cabinet maker may need. After all both can be done at 8k with excellent results. Going up and up in finer grit just makes things more excellent.

I would love to experience less compromise, but i need to up my skills before i can honestly tell myself I deserve better