Kozaki Aoto quick review

I just received a Kozaki Aoto from Metal Master and thought I would share some thoughts. The stone's appearance is nothing remarkable. It is a deep grey/blue and is very consistent without lines or inclusions.


It gets muddy fairly quickly as one would expect and is quite thirsty as well. I kept adding a few drops of water and it kept getting muddier.


This stone is very easy to use and took no figuring out whatsoever. It leaves a subtle kasumi contrast that is foggy and consistent as well as being void of stand-out scratches.


The edge it left on AS was more refined than I expected. I would estimate it finishing around 5k with just a little bit of tooth. The only negative with this stone is the size. At 170 x 45, it is on the smaller side and requires a little practice if you have never used a stone this skinny. That being said, i feel it is an easy to use stone with great feedback. At less than $42 shipped, i think this would make a great travel stone for just about anybody. It is my intention to find a larger example and move this one over to my camping kit. There are several up on MM's fleabay page at the moment but be aware he is very slow with shipping. This one took 20 days to arrive and I've had other orders take twice that long or more, but rest assured, you will get it eventually.

Nice Aoto. I have a similar stone that measures 200x56mm. Yours seems to be high quality, very consistent grit on the fine side for aoto,not too hard or soft and with that deep blue color when wet. Mainaman has a nice large aoto for sale on BST but it is a harder type aoto.

That looks really nice, for the price you cannot go wrong. I got a kouzaki aoto from watanabe but it is the softest of my three and also an OD green when wet. One day I will have the time to compare them all

That actually looks like a keeper. That combination of regularity and not crunchies or scratchies at 5K is aoto heaven. Surprisingly few aoto will give you all of that. Kasumi looks on point too

Badgertooth said:

That actually looks like a keeper. That combination of regularity and not crunchies or scratchies at 5K is aoto heaven. Surprisingly few aoto will give you all of that. Kasumi looks on point too

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You are not kidding. I have three aoto and none give me quite that package.

Good to know. I guess I lucked out. This is my first aoto bench stone so I have not much to compare it to.