Thread: Nagura Honing - Video tutorial

Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

I'm waiting for my recent order from Maxim to arrive: a set of Botan, Tenjyou and Mejiro. Well I wanted a Koma to complete the set, but was having difficulty finding one. Well I just paid for one!!! Upon reading JimR's advice in his blog about koma nagura, I contacted Teshiba- San(yes, I know it's all in Japanese).

Luckily, he had 1 Koma nagura in stock! It's an authentic stamped one, and the price was reasonable so I snatched it up.

I have a hand-held Nakayama Kiita from Alex that I will be using the nagura with, so I am excited to have this nice honing set.

you are very lucky with your Koma, they seem to be completely depleted and out of stock as confirmed by many reliable sources.

Oh no, I hope they don't start cropping up on eBay.
In my experience the Koma is almost indispensable when following Mejiro, and merely a luxury following Tenjyou, but diluting the slurry and continuing to break down either of the middle nagura slurries with more laps seems to accomplish the same function as a koma, before jumping to the tomonagura.
Especially the tenjyou, these slurries can be pushed pretty far in terms of breaking down and bridging to the next nagura.
At least with my experience the tomonagura can, with repeated refreshings (like 4 or 5+), accomplish quite a lot on its own. It just takes more time. It should be noted this method definitely does not have time on its side, it is more about achieving zen/tao timelessness than churning out shave ready blades all day long, IMO. Most I can do is 2 in a day, for now.
So don't fret over the koma my dear friends. These stones are amiable friends and great teachers if you choose this method.

Unfortunately you have to follow with a tomonagura to get the edge where it needs to be, so using koma before that is a bit of a waste of expensive rock IMHO. Mejiro or Tenjio will bring the edge to where it needs to be before the tomonagura stage just fine.

With my old nagura and J-Nat set I got by just fine without the Koma. It really is not necessary, and indeed is not needed to achieve the best edge from your stone.

Originally Posted by bassguy

In my experience the Koma is almost indispensable when following Mejiro, and merely a luxury following Tenjyou.

Bassguy, I'm intrigued to understand what you mean by this - please can you expand?

Thanks,

Elliot

Originally Posted by MrMarx

Bassguy, I'm intrigued to understand what you mean by this - please can you expand?

Thanks,

Elliot

I do not see how is this going to happen, one has to know where to get naguras from Japan, and fake the stamps to sell on e-bay.
The language barrier is another obstacle, and finally what kind of profit will there be, from e-bay? Not many people know what Koma is and what it is used for. Koma is expensive when you do the $$ to mass ratio but the profit margin is not that big as one might think, my 88g Koma was 3300 yen.

Originally Posted by MrMarx

Bassguy, I'm intrigued to understand what you mean by this - please can you expand?

Thanks,

Elliot

If I work diligently enough on the tenjyou to remove botan scratches and then some, then work diligently enough on a tomonagura to remove the tenjyou haze, the komo isn't necessary. BUT in my experience my koma has corrected issues, and makes the leap a bit easier. It's not something I use every time, but I'm glad I have one.