Thread: What are you working on?

Big, ugly, and thick, but cleaning up well. Kind of like me. Washed it with water and a non-scratch pot scrubber and removed something pinkish with a bronze brush. Lapped it and smoothed the surface. It appears to be a good razor finisher

Bloody hell Steve. That's a brick and a half!! Looking at the base it's a Japanese stone? Any idea of the mine?

Originally Posted by Tathra11

Bloody hell Steve. That's a brick and a half!! Looking at the base it's a Japanese stone? Any idea of the mine?

Yes it’s Japanese. No idea of the mine, I actually got it off the base pretty easily to clean the wood up, but there’s no skin on the back. It has black skin but it doesn’t sparkle like Nakayama sometimes did, but the kan ring indicates an eastern mine. It seems old, so I’d say one of the mines around Nakayama like Ozuku or Okudo. It’s a nice hardness, about 5, not so difficult to slurry like modern hard stones and it’s very smooth.

Wow. That's a big old rock for sure. If it doesn't work out for ya it would be too damn big to be a door stop.

You could slice it and get three stones easily.

Dang-boy! Don't drop that joker on your toe. Dying to hear how that finishes.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Wow. That's a big old rock for sure. If it doesn't work out for ya it would be too damn big to be a door stop.

You could slice it and get three stones easily.

Jerry, that’s EXACTLY what Alfredo said and he sent me this image with the red lines! Great minds think alike.

First shave today Paul, it’s a good one! IME, diamond plate slurry on a freshly lapped JNat is a good test but never gives up as good an edge as a burnished stone with a little slurry from a good tomo nagura. But the shave was superb, and I expect that a good tomo will kick the edge up another notch, it always does for me.

Now before anyone thinks that I can refinish a wooden stand in a day, the shiny stand in the SOTD image is not the one that it came on, that one is cleaned of glue and stone bits and ready for the belt sander, but I use my belt sander outside and it’s raining today. Anyway, the third image shows both stands and the back of the stone. The refinished stand is a little smaller and is intended for a 60-cut (190 x 70mm) I think, which this stone is, more or less. The stand that it came on will fit a full bench stone, so when it is refinished I’ll have to decide which one to use, if any. The darned thing is so tall that a stand is not really an asset.

So Im thinking like a Doctor. Ha. That would be a good one. So you got that stone from Alfredo. Nice.

Originally Posted by Gasman

So Im thinking like a Doctor. Ha. That would be a good one. So you got that stone from Alfredo. Nice.

Oh no, the stone came off Yahoo Japan. I just sent Alfredo the image and he suggested what you did.

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The wade had a hair crack! I fixed it and now its looking good[/QUOTE]

How do you polish so well without losing the engraving?
Looks amazing!

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

I have 2 FBUs of my own I'm trying to finish plus a bunch of other quick clean up to do for resale projects. I have 3 or 4 FBUs I bought to turn over and haven't finished any except the one I'm keeping.

Well, much to my chagrin my lovely wife had other plans for my time today. I wound up roped into yard work, but on the up side I did get to work on my giant bonsai tree. Cleaned up all the dead twigs and removed a wild branch or two.







That's a Vaccinium arboreum or "tree blueberry" as it's the wild cousin of the blueberry and it has similar berries but they're tiny. Mainly it is a beautiful shrub and in spring is covered with little bell shaped flowers.



Here we call it a sparkleberry but it is also known in other parts of its distribution area as farkleberry. I have been training it for about 15 years and it is finally looking the way I dreamed of when I planted it. Those long range goals are really sweet when they pan out.

I need to do more pruning but I always err on the side of caution because once.ita cut it is very difficult to un-cut.