Thread: From Kyoto with Love

Hello friends, bassguy here.
A drummer friend and his wife took their usual trip to her home town, Kyoto and just returned today with a few surprises for me. Before he left I armed him with a few words like Nakayama, Asagi, Karasu, etc., as well as JimR's very helpful Japanese Hone Vocabulary. Here's what he found!
Not including driving them home from the airport today, both stones cost me 100$US. Glee!



The one on the left comes right from Nakayama, weighs 955g, and is 14cm long x 9cm wide x 4cm thick. The knife and sword shop they found these in said it is rare because they just don't see new Nakayama stones any more. The piece is very pure in composition throughout with some orange skin along the side poking through. I'll wait for Jim to weigh in on this but it looks like a pale Asagi to me with tiny black speckling. Not blue, but more grey than yellow. To my eyes, on my laptop, the pictures look pretty close to accurate. Actually it's the same color as a piece of Maruka tomonagura ZethLent sold me ages ago. This stone releases a very complex earth smell when wet, reminds me of being in Japan in a very strong way. This stone also sounds similar to my Nakayama asagi when tapped or stroked: quiet and sandy.

The one on the right comes from "next door to Nakayama", not sure on the name of the mine or mountain, but the shop owners maintained it is of equal quality to the Nakayama stone, but more dense. It weighs 489g, measures 14.5cm long, 8cm wide, and 1cm thick. I'd call it kiita, with some kind of patterning that to my ignorant mind seems like karasu. They cannot be felt under the finger or blade. This stone also releases a unique smell, they all do, but this one doesn't remind me of anything. The sound this stone makes when tapped or stroked sounds more glasslike than the Nakayama. It reminds me of the sounds lava rocks from McCullough Range just south of Las Vegas make, glassy, hollow, and almost bell like. The shop owner demonstrated in the shop that this one is more dense than the Nakayama above.

I did the water test, slurry test, and did some passes with an old razor to inspect under the microscope. Here they are next to my current rock star, a Nakayama asagi of no distinction except some great edges.



My initial thoughts are wildy speculative at the moment. They'll all make fine hones once I learn what they like and don't like but I think they are all of relatively the same hardness, with the asagi taking a slight edge because it released slurry slower than the other two. However the two new stones seemed to erase Chosera 1k scratches in very short order and produced a scratch pattern of equal depth and polish. I don't really know if I'll be able to make any conclusions until I've honed razors on all three, shaved with them, and done it again. So, maybe by this time next year? Or maybe I'll take them over to Max (a visit is long over due) and have him play with them a bit.

Best of all, my friend and his wife so impressed the knife dealer with their knowledge of stones that he promised to seek out exceptional stones for them the next time they visit, as well as putting them in touch with a few stone whole sellers in Kyoto. It was a very enjoyable experience for them as well, the old man of the shop shared stories of going into the mines to pick out the stones himself. I hope to visit with them next time.

Thanks for reading!