Quote Originally Posted by JimR View Post
...Finally, specific hone advice. When raising your slurry, time>pressure. It can take a while to raise a good slurry with your tomonagura. Don't use pressure to speed it up, just use the time. Pressure can cause not only clumpy, bad slurry but can muck up the surface of your hone...

This is a small but interesting point that is not mentioned enough. On my current setup it takes almost 5 minutes to make a good slurry without a diamond plate.

I can tell the difference in the feel and finish of the edge when using a diamond plate vs. tomonagura. Since the slurry does the work, it's definitely worth the time to whip up the optimal finishing slurry.