Very good explanation indeed.
Reg Aoto: i have 2 stones, they look almost the same, same stickers on sides, same size, but completely different! The soft one and the hard one, the muddy one and the rocky one. The hard one comes from JNS. at the beginning i hated the stone almost- so hard and so " no response" is was. I even advised in the review to use the diamond nagura to speed it up. But now i see- it has become much quicker! I have noticed with Jnats: sometimes it takes time to " wake them up", it's funny, but i see it quite often. Tsushima is similar to a hard Aoto, but 8000 grit.... You know, TaJ, normally almost all the finisher are set with this number, like 7-8000??so, IMHO, Tsushima is by far not that fine. You can compare both Aoto and Tsushima, Ikarashi and Bunsui or Amakusa ( though Bunsui is a little bit finer, and Amakusa coarser, then Ikarashi). You can have them all, sure, the coarser the stone is, the better the price is.The piece of Amakusa is so beautiful, and you'll get it for nothing, every good coarse synthetic stone will be more expensive. The question is why: to have or to use? I have them all( i mean Aoto, Tsushima, Bunsui, Amakusa) even in varieties, but the real difference begins in finer stones, and this is starting from 200€ and up.
. The Suita is also not an ultimate finisher( it is actually, but there are a lot of stones to use after Suitas, like good Nakayama etc). So to repair the knife i would advise a coarse Shapton( they are damn good), if you like, an Amakusa ( just cheep and beautiful), Bunsui/ Ikarashi- up to you, but anyhow to concentrate more on finishers. Aoto from JNS is affordable and very good. You should try it out. Aoto was alway considered as a knife finisher, actually. The stone is just the stone, dark, no beauty, but it cuts very good. The other matter, why many people say ( 3-5000 grit, ok something like this) - is simple: you push while sharpening- you have more cutting power and lower grit, you do it in more delicate way, almost with the weight if the knife, the grit number changes, because the slurry becomes finer, so it can be characterized as a finer grit. In higher finer stones the difference is even bigger! So having same stone, but using different sharpening technics you get different results, and that is crazy about the Jnats! Don't forget the Naguras, they can help a lot, especially on harder stones. Hakka and Takashima are soft, i like it sometimes, but in generally i prefer harder hones with finer structure. And i prefer not to use any nagura on Suitas, if it is not Sunashi ( a Suita without Su/ holes). So think what do you really need, and try it out! Anyhow- the most magic and sh..t. is that even same mine/ same strata/ same name stones will not provide the same performance! It's up to us to keep on " digging" trying to find " your personal best ever stones" or to stay reasonable and to be happy with the good choice you already have or you can get easily ( a mix between some Jnats and the synthetics). I keep on " digging", but i understand- it's a quite expensive hobby, the knives and the stones, that's it. At least less expensive then to collect the watches
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