Thread: Natural stones

While at Hida Tool today I broke down and bought a very fine grit natural stone that is 1.5" by 9". I'm told it is around a 10k grit and stocked for razor users, found that out after I jumped on it for straights anyway

Anyone else using a japanese natural stone other than the european stone?

I'll get pics when I have the nerve to multi task a sharpening season

There are several people here using Japanese Natural stones. I have a fine finishing stone I picked up on the japan yahoo Site. Its vintage from Iwasaki's private quarry mined around WW ll.

Here is the stone I picked up at Hida Tool, feels frigging smooth when wet and doesn't soak up water very fast. Can't wait to try it. I'm thinking of my Clark and Hall as the first real hone up... but I'm using a less older one to test the edge on first

I have a question for you with natural Japanese hones. It seems they all have those stampings on them, and from what I can tell they're usually stamped on the side you'll be using for honing. Are they lapped before they are marked, or do you lap them (and presumably remove the ink almost immediately)?

I lapped the top of mine and removed the stamps. I took one look at the bottom and decided that it would take days to lap that - deep chisel gouges and so on. Someone remarked (O_S, I think) in another thread that the stamps are important (price-wise) if you ever want to sell it on, but if it's just for you then it's probably not a big issue, unless you are really attached to the stamps.

James.

If your talking japanese synthetic hones like the Kitayama yes they are stamped on the honing surface and this is slowly removed as you use it. if you mean natural hones the contain several small stamps always on the side and they are intended to always be there. from what I gather they denote the type of hone, the quality, grade, sub grade and all that.

Also natural stones really don't soak up water at all like artificial hones do. The Coticules, eschers and japanese are all the same in this way. The rock is not a porous type. They certainly differ with the japanese probably being the most porous.

Originally Posted by DwarvenChef

While at Hida Tool today I broke down and bought a very fine grit natural stone that is 1.5" by 9". I'm told it is around a 10k grit and stocked for razor users, found that out after I jumped on it for straights anyway

Anyone else using a japanese natural stone other than the european stone?

I'll get pics when I have the nerve to multi task a sharpening season

I do have a J stone, it's a Maruichi Nakayama, I already used it to hone just about anything I could put my hand on, and I guess I was lucky, as the bottom is as smooth as the top, so I can keep the stamps.

My natural Japanese hone came with markings on the surface and before using it for honing, I lapped the surface on a 2000 grit wet and dry sheet on glass. the marking disappeared immediately.

Incidentally, I wouldn't have used it without lapping it and I lap it far more frequently than my Coticule.

I'm laping it tonight and seeing what it will do. I don't intend to sell it off so I have no issues with loosing the markings, thats what Pic's are for

Lapped it and lucky for me it was already VERY flat. I'm working one of my robesons up the grits now to see if it really is above the 8k, sure feels like it.