K813zra
Senior Member
So my birthday is coming up and my wife told me to search out a stone that I would like as a gift. Having had time to test out my Aizu, quite a bit, I find that I like it well enough for many knives but there are some that I want to take about half a step finer. While I am starting to understand what I want in a stone I am still a little confused about what parameters to set and what questions to ask a vendor. The basics are that I know I want something that feels softer in use, even if it is not as soft as it feels (some stones seem to feel softer or harder than they actually are) and something that is fairly quick for a natural. But I feel I need to figure some things out before I can refine my search.
For example: I got both my Ikarashi and Aizu from Watanabe and while both of these stones where said to be in the 4-5/10 range the Aizu feels much, much harder and denser than the Ikarashi. It is nowhere near as thirsty either. As such that makes it hard for me to say, "okay this is a 6/10 so it MUST feel softer than a 7/10" I do not think that is the correct line of thinking. On top of that it seems that Mr Watanabe does not use the same scale for all stones, or at least he does not label them the same. For example: Sometimes he will say that a stone is medium hard, a little bit hard, hard or extra hard. Other times he will say it is 6/10, 7/10 or 8/10. Yet other times he will use a number such as HS50, HS60 or HS70. How does one sort through these numbers to come to a conclusion?
Another issue is when looking at other vendors, they do not use the same system. At aframes a similar scale seems to be used, x/10 but his numbers seem to almost always been in the 8-9 range for finishers. Typically 8.2-8.6. JNS uses Lv1-5. Does anyone have stones from all of these vendors and can give a generalization as to how they correspond? IE a 6/10 is similar to a Lv3 or something like that? Or is it just going to be a shot in the dark?
So after our conversations in other threads I have come to the conclusion that I am likely going to be researching stones such as Takashima, Hideriyama or Ohira (one flavor or another). Hakka is out there too but seems a bit muddier than I would like and also seems to be a mythical creature that weighs much more than my wallet ever will. Looking at numbers from vendors it seems that Ohira produces a lot of stones in similar hardness to Hideriyama but which is likely to be softer or harder seems to depend on which vendor you look at. Yes, I know that each stone from a mine differs and I am working off of generalizations. However, it does seem that while there are exceptions that some mines are known for producing more consistent stones than others. Ohira for example seems to get praise almost exclusively whereas Hideriyama gets a ton of mixed reviews.
Speaking of which, is there a specific issue with Hideriyama? At first my reading seem to indicate that Hideriyama produced fairly decent stones but if you go back further in the archives there are a handful of people who seem to hate these stones with a passion, going as far as to say that they are simply trash. Others seem to think they are good for cosmetic finishing on wider bevels and yet others say they work well on narrow bevels...
The point is, the more I read the more confused I become. When it came to mid grit stones there was a general consensus to go for two stones, Ikarashi and Aizu with very few opinions in opposition. It seems that the same can not be said about finishing stones, with the exception of a few limited stones that everyone seems to praise but these seem to be harder and finer than what I might like. Yes, I realize that in the end I will just have to bite the bullet and order something and experience it for myself. From there deciding which way to go next. Sure, there may be lateral moves here and there in respect to edge quality but I think how the stone matches your style and preference may be more important than if very slightly finer or coarser than another stone.
Anyway, I know I get long in the tooth, I am not the most organized and I have asked similar questions a lot since coming here but I was hoping to gain some direction here. I have read a lot of threads here and still have not come much closer to figuring out what to do. I read a lot, to the point that google makes me prove that I am not a robot every time I move to the next page of results.:lol2: And while I know that many aspects are subjective I was wishing for people to share their experiences with me about some of their favorite and least favorite finishers and why they classify them as such. As well as clearing up some of my misunderstandings.
TL;DR: I am looking for a softer less dense finishing stone to follow Aizu. Nothing overly fine, maybe somewhere in the 5-7k range when compared to synthetics. I don't want to sell my kidney either...:eyebrow:
Sorry for rambling on and thank you in advance if you can aid me in any way.
For example: I got both my Ikarashi and Aizu from Watanabe and while both of these stones where said to be in the 4-5/10 range the Aizu feels much, much harder and denser than the Ikarashi. It is nowhere near as thirsty either. As such that makes it hard for me to say, "okay this is a 6/10 so it MUST feel softer than a 7/10" I do not think that is the correct line of thinking. On top of that it seems that Mr Watanabe does not use the same scale for all stones, or at least he does not label them the same. For example: Sometimes he will say that a stone is medium hard, a little bit hard, hard or extra hard. Other times he will say it is 6/10, 7/10 or 8/10. Yet other times he will use a number such as HS50, HS60 or HS70. How does one sort through these numbers to come to a conclusion?
Another issue is when looking at other vendors, they do not use the same system. At aframes a similar scale seems to be used, x/10 but his numbers seem to almost always been in the 8-9 range for finishers. Typically 8.2-8.6. JNS uses Lv1-5. Does anyone have stones from all of these vendors and can give a generalization as to how they correspond? IE a 6/10 is similar to a Lv3 or something like that? Or is it just going to be a shot in the dark?
So after our conversations in other threads I have come to the conclusion that I am likely going to be researching stones such as Takashima, Hideriyama or Ohira (one flavor or another). Hakka is out there too but seems a bit muddier than I would like and also seems to be a mythical creature that weighs much more than my wallet ever will. Looking at numbers from vendors it seems that Ohira produces a lot of stones in similar hardness to Hideriyama but which is likely to be softer or harder seems to depend on which vendor you look at. Yes, I know that each stone from a mine differs and I am working off of generalizations. However, it does seem that while there are exceptions that some mines are known for producing more consistent stones than others. Ohira for example seems to get praise almost exclusively whereas Hideriyama gets a ton of mixed reviews.
Speaking of which, is there a specific issue with Hideriyama? At first my reading seem to indicate that Hideriyama produced fairly decent stones but if you go back further in the archives there are a handful of people who seem to hate these stones with a passion, going as far as to say that they are simply trash. Others seem to think they are good for cosmetic finishing on wider bevels and yet others say they work well on narrow bevels...
The point is, the more I read the more confused I become. When it came to mid grit stones there was a general consensus to go for two stones, Ikarashi and Aizu with very few opinions in opposition. It seems that the same can not be said about finishing stones, with the exception of a few limited stones that everyone seems to praise but these seem to be harder and finer than what I might like. Yes, I realize that in the end I will just have to bite the bullet and order something and experience it for myself. From there deciding which way to go next. Sure, there may be lateral moves here and there in respect to edge quality but I think how the stone matches your style and preference may be more important than if very slightly finer or coarser than another stone.
Anyway, I know I get long in the tooth, I am not the most organized and I have asked similar questions a lot since coming here but I was hoping to gain some direction here. I have read a lot of threads here and still have not come much closer to figuring out what to do. I read a lot, to the point that google makes me prove that I am not a robot every time I move to the next page of results.:lol2: And while I know that many aspects are subjective I was wishing for people to share their experiences with me about some of their favorite and least favorite finishers and why they classify them as such. As well as clearing up some of my misunderstandings.
TL;DR: I am looking for a softer less dense finishing stone to follow Aizu. Nothing overly fine, maybe somewhere in the 5-7k range when compared to synthetics. I don't want to sell my kidney either...:eyebrow:
Sorry for rambling on and thank you in advance if you can aid me in any way.
