Thread: From Kyoto with Love

Thank you Jerry for the kind words.
Today I had chance to audition the Nakayama on a shave. I took my Panter De Lux which was just a bit off shave ready, and tried a bunch of stuff just to see what works. This stone is FAST. I've never seen metal show up in the slurry that fast before. 10 circles and 10 x strokes each side basically erased the sins of previous usage. It's a small stone so circles are preferred. The shave was really nice actually, so sharp but so smooth you wouldn't know until you made a mistake. Pretty impressed with this little hunk a chunk a Kyoto.

I wonder if I'd get a bit more help with the Japanese if this were in the Hones thread...
Update on the non Nakayama kiita stone: I tried using it with Botan nagura and the slurry it created wasn't white, but the color of the stone. This means (I think) that this stone isn't hard enough to use with nagura progression. A good friend recommended I use "a very light touch. Backstrokes might be better, too. Keep excess slurry down."
Back to the honing tests. I honed up an old Sheffield with nagura progression on the Nakayama, then for kicks finished it on the other kiita and will test it tomorrow in the shaving arena.

Turns out the stone on the right is an Ozuko. Haven't spend too much time with this one yet.
I had great results yesterday from the Nakayama on a solingen blade, but only after I stropped. I don't think I'll be shaving straight off the hone again, it was quite rough. Once it was stropped though it was very clearly one of the best edges I've had, left my face nick free and sticky smooth with little effort.

*EDIT: this is actually what they said:
"The name of the mountain is "Ohzuku," but there is a possibility it is spelled "Ohduku," "Ooduku," or "Oduku," depending on which phonetic translation they use in converting Japanese symbols to romanized letters."