Keeping my nose to the...er...Japanese Natural Stone

Hi folks,

This is a very long post. Hope some of you can make it through it :)

I've recently received a Japanese Natural Stone from thejapanblade.com. It's a Oozuku Kiita final finishing stone with Nashiji, rated at 4+ hardness, but supposedly as fine as harder asagis (as far as I can tell, Alex does a lot of testing on these stones, so I'm taking his notes at face value). It's pretty fast too, darkening on slurry in about 20-30 x-strokes, and I notice some slightswarf after about 20 x-strokes on water.

I've attached a picture of the stone.

I've been playing around with it for the last couple days, trying to learn it, and it definitely seems like it's going to be a long process. This thread is going to be some sort of a honing diary for it. Short version of this post: having troubles getting keenness, skip down to the bottom for specific questions.

Some background: I learned to hone on a coticule, and I learned how to get a nice keen edge on a La Verte Coticule. However, the razors that I finished off with it would leave a slightly harsh feel on my face, especially after a couple days in a row. Eventually I learned that a lot of people feel similarly about La Vertes, that they don't leave that mellow of an edge. So, I ended up selling it, and grabbed a select coticule. Something to note is that the HHT for a finished razor off of this stone yielded a slight catch and pop, but it was pretty easy to pass the HHT.

This new one is an interesting little specimen. It's definitely really fast on slurry (starts darkening almost immediately), but I've got some issues getting it as keen as I want. After a bunch of experimenting, and eventually doing the unicot method, I had a razor that would shave, but not as nicely as I wanted. It was definitely a mellow edge, but not as keen as I wanted. The surface of this coticule does feel noticeably rougher than the japanese natural, and also compared to the la verte I had previously.

In order to try and get the best of both worlds, I decided it would be a good idea to finally get into Japanese Natural Stones, as it certainly sounds like they can give you a very keen and smooth edge.

After receiving this particular stone, I've been playing around with it, practicing on a 5/8 full hollow Erik Anton Berg with one layer of tape. I'm getting the razor to undercut water easily on the coticule, and then raising a medium slurry on the JNat with a supplied tomonagura stone. I've tried working on this until it dries out, then refreshing and raising new slurry until it dries out, and the edge is undercutting all the slurry. I do halfstrokes throughout, and then I add a little water and do x-strokes until that dries (about 20 or 30).

After doing this, I had a razor that would shave, but once again didn't feel that keen. The razor won't pass the HHT, although it does cut my arm hair pretty easily.

I tried a variation of this again today, starting with undercutting plain water on the coticule. Then I raised heavier slurry, doing x-strokes until it started to turn pasty, then I added water and raised some new slurry on top of the old stuff, and kept going. This time when it started drying out, I added water, and then after every 20 x-strokes I added more, diluting until I got to very light slurry (overall this took about 5 or 6 dilutions). Then I rinsed both the stone and my razor, and reapplied tape. On plain water I did about 30 x-strokes, and the entire edge was undercutting water.

Since I had already shaved today, I was unable to test the edge on my face. It did cut arm hair above skin level quite easily, but still didn't start to pass the HHT.

Here are some questions for those of you who made it all the way through this novel.

1. Has anyone noticed that they cannot pass the HHT as easily off of a Japanese natural stone?
2. I've used undercutting on water as a test to tell that I've got the maximum keenness off of a coticule (or if not the maximum, quite close). Is this not similar on a Japanese natural?
3. I do use a guiding finger near the tip of the razor, but I'm very careful about not adding any extra pressure with it. I try to keep the finger behind, rather than on top of the spine to help with that. This method has been fine when using a coticule. I also tried to hold the JNat in my hand, using the other to do strokes, but it felt like I was adding uneven pressure so I stopped and went back to my previous method. I did this right at the beginning, so did all the slurry work and dilutions the second try with the guiding finger. Would the original one handed funky strokes have screwed things up enough that they could not be reclaimed? Could using a guiding finger add enough pressure to screw up an edge?

Any other tips/tricks?

Thanks in advance!

Holy Sh^t my last car was cheaper than some of those! nakayama2.htm

A "funky stroke" could mess it all up.

tim

Hi - I might not be the best person to answer here because I'm new to Jnats. But - I have had a similar kind of experience to what you describe.
Where I'm at now - When I'm using Mejiro slurry - I work it until I can't stand it any longer. Undercutting slurry is easy, even for a blade that's not quite there. This is - of course- just my opinion. But - my theory is this - slurry particles break down the surface tension in the water so it can ride up over the edge easier. In any case, in the past - reading plain water on the bevel has been my only way to know I'm 'there'.
What I have found, when using my Jnat, is that the blade has to be rinsed off more than I was used to with Coticules.
The first time I found that I was unable to get the water to break over the bevel - I found slurry streaks on the face of the bevel and that seemed to be what was messing me up. I needed to rinse, wipe, rinse, wipe and rinse again to get it all off. It dries up fast and its a real pita to get off afterwards. Barbicide makes short work of that but a little effort with running water and a paper wipe will get it clean too. Once it's clean, it undercut the water just fine.
My ticket to success at this point (admittedly, I'm in a very early stage of using these hones) - if I feel suction when I'm still x-stroking through Mejiro slurry - I'm probably good to go. If I put the clean blade on the Awasedo with only clear water - I should feel the blade sucked down to the stone on the first stroke. It's a little unsettling actually.
Now - if I use a Tomo Nagura or Koma Nagura or both in succession after the Mejiro - it's the same process... hone until I feel the blade pulling down a bit, then rinse rinse rinse - and move to the next step. I should always feel that suction at the onset of finishing on clear water.
Undercutting plain water has been a trick for me on the Jnat - I worked on a Henckels yesterday and while I was happy with the edge, I felt I could do better. The water-only honing stage wasn't spectacular. I was getting water over the bevel, but it wasn't what I call a 'violent' wave of water. So - I rehoned it today; Mejiro, Tomo, Water. If I'm not exuberant after tonights shave I'm going to do that again, and I'll add Koma to the progression.
I know Koma isn't supposed to be 'mandatory' but so far I have found that step to bring up the best edges and I can't seem to reproduce that level of sharpness without using it. I don't understand this because I usually do finish with Tomo Nagura slurry followed by plain water. Since the Tomo Nagura would be finer than the Koma,.. I can't figure out how using Koma is giving me a significantly keener edge. Maybe it's just me being new. Time will tell.
Sorry for the long winded reply...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tlittle

1. Has anyone noticed that they cannot pass the HHT as easily off of a Japanese natural stone? Have you calibrated your HHT ? Personally I only use it after stropping. Very easy to get a false +ve with a "toothy" edge & a false -ve with a slight wire.

2. I've used undercutting on water as a test to tell that I've got the maximum keenness off of a coticule (or if not the maximum, quite close). Is this not similar on a Japanese natural? Can't answer that, it's not an indicator I rely on.

3. I do use a guiding finger near the tip of the razor, but I'm very careful about not adding any extra pressure with it. I try to keep the finger behind, rather than on top of the spine to help with that. This method has been fine when using a coticule. I also tried to hold the JNat in my hand, using the other to do strokes, but it felt like I was adding uneven pressure so I stopped and went back to my previous method. I did this right at the beginning, so did all the slurry work and dilutions the second try with the guiding finger. Would the original one handed funky strokes have screwed things up enough that they could not be reclaimed? Could using a guiding finger add enough pressure to screw up an edge? Sounds like you just need more practise to even your strokes. I started with 2 hands & now use 1, others use 2 hands bevel setting & drop to 1 for middle & end game.

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Don't know how long you've been honing but naturals take some learning... every individual one of them :)
Try some different things & less & or more strokes. It is easy to muck up an edge right at the end with bad stroke. If your naturals are fast you can reclaim a botched stroke but sometimes its easier to drop back to the synthetics.

One of the real problems with the HHT is that a hacked out diamond edge that leaves a very "toothy" edge with pass the HHT without a problem but when you shave with it that is a different matter. Not smooth. Naturals tend to leave a very smooth edge but it is a random matted pattern. When I use a J-Nat, and anything else for that matter, I look at the reflection off the cutting edge. Is it diamond white? Is it a cloudy looking reflection? There are tricks that you can do to help it along like breaking down the slurry till you get finer and finer particles and thus a more polished edge.

Everyone comes at this from a different angle. I bought an Asagi that is extremely hard for an Asagi and I use it just for finishing and bough a cheaper stone and use my Naguri on it and only hit the Asagi when I am really ready to hit the finishing phase. I slurry, then go to just water, then to an almost dry stone....not dry but "almost" dry.


Take Care,
Richard

I have an Ozuku kiita and its a very good stone for the HHT.

I hone completely different on the jnat than on the coticule. I got mine from Maxim at JNS and its been great. I'm no expert by any means but here's what I do;
- couple drops of water make a full fat milk (bevel cutting slurry) and set bevel
- after this dilute and every second dilution I rub the stone with my tomonagura slurry stone, its pretty soft.
- the further I dilute, the less I refresh with the slurry stone.
- Once the slurry's diluted enough to be clear, hone until it dries out a little but still moist enough that it supports the razor and it'll feel like your honing on a thin jelly
- add enough water to keep this feeling.
- the bevel should be polished to a near mirror shine.

This is my stonethough, but you could always try it and see if it works on your stone, but your ozuku kiita stone looks quite a bit different from mine. My stone is a light grey/green with no inclusions on the surface, very smooth to hone on.

I only use medium pressure at the bevel setting, after that, I use light pressure and when I'm finishing, enough to keep the razor on the hone - too much pressure when finishing will give a rough edge.

very soft edge and cuts effortlessly, like diamond paste with a coticule edge.

Off the coticule I wouldn't start off with such a thick slurry, start with a very light slurry and do three dilutions to water and let it dry out a little until your on a thin jelly and it should give you a good edge.

I use my leg hair to test edges, depending how it cuts, depends how it shaves. I couldn't get a hair sample consistent enough for the HHT.

I did have my jnat up for sale but decided to keep it eventually as I like honing on it too much to let it go.

regards alex

When you use your tomonagura, after you refresh the slurry a couple times, stop refreshing it. If the slurry starts to dry out, add just a drop or 2 of water and keep doing that a few times.

I say that because as I read/was told, the slurry from the tomonagura will break down and get finer as you go. If you keep refreshing it, you're not letting it break down all the way. I'm still learning with mine as well, but this seems to make a difference as far as keenness goes.

I also do a few passes on a CrOx balsa strop after I'm done with my J-nat, and they pushes the edge just a bit farther. If you have the means, you can try that too. Good luck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by avatar1999

When you use your tomonagura, after you refresh the slurry a couple times, stop refreshing it. If the slurry starts to dry out, add just a drop or 2 of water and keep doing that a few times.

I say that because as I read/was told, the slurry from the tomonagura will break down and get finer as you go. If you keep refreshing it, you're not letting it break down all the way. I'm still learning with mine as well, but this seems to make a difference as far as keenness goes.

I also do a few passes on a CrOx balsa strop after I'm done with my J-nat, and they pushes the edge just a bit farther. If you have the means, you can try that too. Good luck!

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There was a mammoth thread on coticule.be about a member who was learning from an experienced jnat honer in Japan I think. I read that the slurry breaks down also.

Maxim at JNS mentioned a str8 razor isn't heavy enough to break down the slurry, so if I wanted to break down the slurry I would have to rub a heavy screwdriver or other heavy tool over the stone to break it down - I think ths was also mentioned in the same thread.

I was also told that if you leave the slurry to break down, it stops sharpening and starts to polish without gaining much more keenness, I have no idea whether a razor is heavy enough to break down the slurry or not but I do know that once I stop refreshing the slurry at the end, it loses the hazed look on the bevel and starts to polish.

I gradually reduce the amount I refresh to keep it sharpening until I want the stone to polish - Don't get me wrong, I have no idea if thats actually what happens but I do know it works on this stone and acts like the slurry eventually does breakdown - so maybe a razor is heavy enough to break the slurry down? who knows

Experiment and see what works for your stone, if members list their different methods here, the OP can try them out and see if one works, it always comes down to trial and error or fun ;)

regards Alex

I would try shaving with it. I have had edges off of stones(I have a small Nakayama hone in particular I am thinking of) that seemed to cut arm hair effortlessly, gave very iffy HHT if it would pass at all, yet gave some of the best and smoothest shaves I have had.
I honestly don't even use the HHT any more for this reason.
Basically my point is shave with it and see how it performs, don't get hung up on a HHT result.

For the OP: if you're seeing swarf after 30 or so strokes, you probably have a fast cutter. Fast stones generally do not play well w/ the thick slurry method--most Jnat finishers don't actually. You may actually be eating your edge. Thick slurry is better for kamisori as pressure is used & the sharpening surface is a bit bigger; for western razors it may be too much.

I would try this: get your razor to a known state (shaves effortlessly) & then try something like 20 circles/10 x-strokes. Strop & shave & see if that makes any difference. From there, try light slurry to water. Keep doing less than you think you'll need--you want to see where the stone starts working so you can work out a more consistent system for future use so you don't have to guess every time you hone a razor.

You stone might end up working well w/ thick slurry, but most razor stones work best using light slurry to water.

Well thank you for all the responses so far! I did try the shave off the second method today, and it's a LOT better than the first. To recap, the first was making a medium slurry, and just honing away using halfstrokes and x-strokes until the slurry dried.

The second, better method for me so far is diluting to plain water. I was able to get a very comfortable shave with little to no pulling around my problem areas. I still think I can do a lot better, but I think this was a step in the right direction.

I think my next step is going to be trying another razor out, going from plain water on the coti, to light slurry on Jnat diluting to plain water. If that works then I'll know that refreshing the slurry multiple times is unnecessary. I can't wait to experiment more with this stone, as I think I can probably get the razor keener. It is VERY smooth at this point though :)

I agree with the thin slurry to water method also (at least for that's what has worked great on my stone). At first I tried a thick slurry and it actually dulled the edge to a degree.

Did a marathon honing session tonight. I've got three different razors honed up and ready for some shave testing over the next couple days.

First is the Erik Anton Berg from before. Did a touchup just using a very light tomonagura slurry diluted to plain water, then worked on til damp.

Second is a Genco Easy Aces that needed a bevel set first. Did that on my coticule, and diluted to plain water. Then I raised the same light tomonagura slurry on the Japanese Natural with the same method as above.

Third one was a little different. I had a Robeson Shuredge that I had previously honed using unicot on the coticule (in order to find out how keen my coticule could get me). I thought I'd experiment a little, and try to remove the microbevel using just slurry on the Japanese Natural to finish using the above method (just to see how fast the hone actually was). However, somehow I lost track of what I was doing, and while doing a bit of a rolling X-stroke I ended up with the edge of the blade at an angle to the edge of the stone, moving straight down the stone for about a cm. I ended up making a tiny slice into my perfect bevel!:gaah: Almost invisible to the naked eye, but there it was.

So, with the experimentation already in motion, I thought I'd see if I could remove that teensy tiny chip using just my new stone (as it already seems like it's blazing fast). Lo and behold, after one round of medium-heavy tomonagura slurry it had disappeared, leaving me once again with a nice even bevel.

Not sure which razor I'll try out tomorrow, but hopefully they'll all pass the shave test fine. If they all shave like the EA Berg did the first time around, I'll consider it a moderate success. Here's hoping I upped the keenness this time though!

I still haven't been able to pass my HHT off of this stone, but the blades are cutting arm hair nicely (as before) so we'll see how it goes. (As an aside, as soon as I finished I rounded off the edges of my Japanese Natural. Probably should have done that earlier...)

If you want to improve the keenness try refreshing the slurry progressively reducing how much you refresh as you dilute. It'll keep sharpening the edge until your ready to stop refreshing the slurry and start adding smoothness to the edge, it might help with your HHT, as it should be able to pass it easily

It's been quite a while since I updated this thread. Figured I'd put some thoughts down for posterity.

First, I'm absolutely sure I can still get better results.

Second, the amount of slurry I was using was probably insufficient. I ended up getting back in touch directly with the source (Alex Gilmore) and asked him about his methods with the stone. He said he used a decreasing series of half strokes (40, 20, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1), diluted and repeated for finishing.

I tried that, and nothing much seemed to happen. He also sent along a youtube video of him honing, so I watched that (probably should have done that first, but I guess I was impatient--didn't have any fully shave-ready razors anymore). Turns out he's using much thicker slurry than I was. I had been making slurry that was almost unnoticeable until you started pushing it around with a razor, so I tried his method again with thicker slurry.

Voila! An edge that shaved very comfortably, with no pull around my chinny-chin-chin! However, I still did not pass that darn HHT! I'm thinking that my hair sample just doesn't respond to a japanese natural edge, so I should stop worrying about it.

Of course, with that exciting milestone under my belt, I started wondering about harder stones. Mine is softer, and absorbs water relatively quickly, quick enough that in the space of 20 half strokes the stone can start drying out.

So, I did exactly what everyone says not to do. I went out and I got another stone. I saw that there was a cosmetically flawed Nakayama Asagi available for a greatly discounted price, and I pounced.

That came in just a week ago and I've been experimenting with that as well. Using the same method described for my other stone, I was able to get an HHT-3 off of the stone! So now my theories are completely blown about the HHT and Japanese Naturals. Apparently that test works great for my coticule, but for my Japanese Naturals I either need to do a lot more work on them (of course!) or I need to figure out a better test.

Back to the drawing boards, although at least I'm getting comfy shaving edges now. Just going to start chasing that perfect edge!

I could not find that youtube video, would you mind sharing the link?

Here ya go:

Honing a razor on a Nakayama - YouTube