Beginner to polishing and natural stones

[Garner Harrison]

Hey!

I haven't active here long but Ive been lightly lurking for a few weeks now.

I got most of my advice and information on stones for a kasumi finish here. After looking around at the various stones I settled on the JNS 800/6000 with the JNS synthetic Red Aoto since I heard the 800/Red Aoto were great for a synthetic kasumi finish and on the JNS website it says that the 6000 is a good stone to move off on to natural stones after. These should be arriving soon and I'm really excited to use them.

Speaking of natural stones I was looking around at the natural stones was looking for one that would give me great contrast for a kasumi finish and not break my bank account. Decided after watching a few videos that I could find, settled on a Hideriyama stone that is roughly 8000-10000 grit. It was reasonably priced for me and didnt cost me a fortune to ship since it was an Australian site.

The main question for this thread is how do I firstly look after a Natural stone? I looked on the JNS website and they said to flatten with a diamond plate then finish off with another natural stone/nagura but I didnt include this in my order and they didnt response to me when I asked if they could add it sadly before my order shipped. So is just a diamond plate good enough or should I wait for a natural nagura to arrive?

Also sealing the stone is another question I have, the retailer I got it from said its already sealed but will I need to do it myself also to make sure?

And lastly do I need to wrap it in paper towel or something of the sort to help prevent cracking when drying it? I saw this in the description of some synthetic stones and I wonder if it applies to mine.

I hope this isnt too much text for you guys and I hope to hear from youse!

Ps. Any tips/do not's for polishing knives for my first time?

 

[tgfencer]

To address your questions:

Diamond plates- All stones, synthetic or natural, are best flattened to maintain usefulness for sharpening and polishing. Your stone will probably be mostly flat on arrival, but its always best to check and flatten as often the surface will have a bit of grit contamination from shipping/sitting in a store. There are many methods of flattening, diamond plates and a pencil cross-hatch being the most common. Sandpaper attached to a flat surface can also do the trick in a pinch. Diamond plates are also used to produce mud on harder natural stones that do not cut as fast, but with a hideriyama that shouldn't be necessary.

Sealing- If the retailer said its sealed, then it probably is, on the sides and bottom. Its easy to check this by wetting the sides/bottom and seeing if water droplets bead and/or roll off. You may have to reapply some sort of lacquer in the future, but I doubt it will be necessary immediately.

Drying-For the most part, natural stones operate in the same way that splash and go synthetics do. They can be dried simply by placing room temp somewhere in your house (but probably out of direct sunlight just to be safe). If you have a very soft or thirsty natural stone that drinks lots and lots of water while you sharpen, you may benefit from the towel, but honestly I've never used one and never had any cracking problems. Just don't lay them out next to a heater or in the extreme cold.

As for polishing tips, you can find a lot by utilizing the search function, but to get you started here's one of the most important. To get a good final kasumi polish, you really need to do the grunt work on the coarse and lower grit stones. For many knives, this involves going down to 120/220 grit to remove low spots. If you make it to your hideriyama with a patchy and uneven scratch pattern then no matter what you do it's not going to look good (barring sandpaper/fingerstones).

Good luck!

 

[Garner Harrison]

Thanks for the reply, pretty much answered everything for me. Ill make sure to search up a ton more on polishing before I start but thanks again for the few tips and help!

 

[childermass]

Hi and welcome to the bottomless pit of natural stones .

I will try to answer most of your questions...

For flattening/lapping you should be fine with using only a diamond plate. The use of a natural Nagura for further conditioning of the stone is not needed unless you plan to hone razors, moreover there is a chance that this will have a negative impact on cutting speed of the stone. I for my part use a double sided Atoma with 140/400 grit for flattening and lapping and that’s it.

If the vendor says that they sealed the stone there should be nothing for you to worry about. You will definitely notice a difference between the lacquered and the natural part of the stone.

No need to wrap the stone in anything while drying, just let it sit outside until dry and then store. Should be quick, most naturals don’t absorb lots of water.

I will leave the polishing tips to the pros here, I‘m not the best polisher around, I just enjoy working with and using natural stones.

 

[childermass]

To address your questions:

Diamond plates- All stones, synthetic or natural, are best flattened to maintain usefulness for sharpening and polishing. Your stone will probably be mostly flat on arrival, but its always best to check and flatten as often the surface will have a bit of grit contamination from shipping/sitting in a store. There are many methods of flattening, diamond plates and a pencil cross-hatch being the most common. Sandpaper attached to a flat surface can also do the trick in a pinch. Diamond plates are also used to produce mud on harder natural stones that do not cut as fast, but with a hideriyama that shouldn't be necessary.

Sealing- If the retailer said its sealed, then it probably is, on the sides and bottom. Its easy to check this by wetting the sides/bottom and seeing if water droplets bead and/or roll off. You may have to reapply some sort of lacquer in the future, but I doubt it will be necessary immediately.

Drying-For the most part, natural stones operate in the same way that splash and go synthetics do. They can be dried simply by placing room temp somewhere in your house (but probably out of direct sunlight just to be safe). If you have a very soft or thirsty natural stone that drinks lots and lots of water while you sharpen, you may benefit from the towel, but honestly I've never used one and never had any cracking problems. Just don't lay them out next to a heater or in the extreme cold.

As for polishing tips, you can find a lot by utilizing the search function, but to get you started here's one of the most important. To get a good final kasumi polish, you really need to do the grunt work on the coarse and lower grit stones. For many knives, this involves going down to 120/220 grit to remove low spots. If you make it to your hideriyama with a patchy and uneven scratch pattern then no matter what you do it's not going to look good (barring sandpaper/fingerstones).

Good luck!

Didn’t see this when I started typing

 

[Garner Harrison]

I still thank you for your reply, as you gave me a little tid bit of knowledge I didnt know! @childermass

 

[madelinez]

As someone that's gone down that rabbit hole, you can get an idea just using finger stones for polishing. The benefit is it takes less skill (although much slower) and you can see the characteristics of a range of stones for a fraction of the cost.

Nakayama stones are very popular for a kasumi finish. Let your stones dry away from the sun, preferably on something that won't prevent the bottom from drying at the same time.

 

[Garner Harrison]

Ive heard that Hideriyama stones can be hit or miss after I purchased it so Im a bit worried now. I hope it turns out to be a good stone >.>

Should of asked more questions I think about the stone but I was too caught up in getting a natural stone for the price it was. Hopefully I wont regret it once it arrives!

 

[madelinez]

I've never used a Hideriyama so I have no idea haha. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun either way, jnats are less consistent than synths, and each one takes a bit of time to understand.

 

[Garner Harrison]

Also another question for this thread. Can I go ahead and try to polish my knives with some generic suehiro synthetics?

My JNS stones have been delayed a good few weeks I think so I have plenty of time to kill and I was thinking I could somewhat practice polishing before hopping into my JNS stones/natural stone. I think I wont use my Hideriyama until I get my JNS stones.

Im a bit worried that the contrast between the hard and soft steel will go away if I use the synthetics since I have a mono-steel blade of Silver Steel No.3.

 

[Kitchen-Samurai]

You can practice your sharpening skills with any stone, and Suehiro has some good ones, so, sure, go ahead and use them.
I don‘t quite understand your question about loosing contrast on a monosteel blade, though. Correct me if I misunderstood, but you can only create contrast on a clad knife (so, non-monosteel)...

 

[Garner Harrison]

From my understanding of how kasumi finishes work is that you have the hard steel and soft steel wear down in different ways to get the two different effects. The knife I have I assume is heat treated to have a hard edge and the rest I assume is softer steel.

Sorry for the bad picture quality as it is midnight for me so no natural light >.>

 

[Garner Harrison]

You can practice your sharpening skills with any stone, and Suehiro has some good ones, so, sure, go ahead and use them.
I don‘t quite understand your question about loosing contrast on a monosteel blade, though.

The question wasn't really about sharpening the edge but about polishing the face of the knife and if I could somewhat maintain the hamon I have now with the Suehiro stones to prep for the JNS stones/Natural stones to actually start building up the kasumi finish.

Not sure Im making any sense as its midnight and my brain is turning off x.x

 

[Kitchen-Samurai]

I see, just a matter of terminology. You have a clad knife which is made of a harder core steel (hagane) and a softer steel cladding (jigane). As far as I know, one would refer to this as a clad knife or san mai construction. A monosteel blade is made of only one type of steel (mono), and therefor does not have a Kasumi finish.
I cannot comment on the Suehiro‘s abilities to keep the contrast, this will depend on the exact stones and your skills. I would guess though, that you might likely deteriorate the aesthetics of the blade...
What knife is this?

 

[Garner Harrison]

Ah ok, thats on me for using the wrong terminology cause Im a little new to it.

Its a "Shigeki Tanaka Silver Steel No.3 210mm Gyuto" that I picked up on sale as my first Japanese knife. Kinda wish I got a carbon steel, something longer and something with a nicer finish on the choil/spine. The choil and spine are pretty rough imo.

What knife is this?

 

[Kitchen-Samurai]

The finish looks very nice and even though (from what I can see in the picture). And don't worry, it will not be your last J-knife...!
I am kinda on a similar path like you, and want to learn more about Kasumi finishes. If you were living closer to the Canadian capital, we could have tried it together. I just received a set of Morihei Hishiboshi stones, it would have been nice to compare those to your JNS stones. Both are synthetic stones which are supposedly good at creating a Kasumi finish on clad knives.
Good luck for your Kasumi attempts, and let us know how it goes!

 

[Midsummer]

You can ease the spine and coil with some sand paper. Some people use it in strips, in a shoe-shine type motion. Getting that smooth will eat up a good bit of your time

 

[Garner Harrison]

When I get my JNS stones as they are on a bit of a delay for now. In 2020 ill have them and Ill make sure to share my progress chasing that kasumi finish!

And thanks Midsummer, Ill look that up and such. I really dont want to alter the Nashiji finish so Ill be careful.

 

[ian]

maintain the hamon I have now

Just fyi, since you mentioned you’re learning terminology, hamon means something different. It’s a transition usually closer to the spine on a type of monosteel knife where they harder the upper part of the knife less than the lower part. On a sanmai (3 layer) knife like yours, you’d call the transition between core and cladding the ‘cladding line’ or something.

Re the spine and choil. I usually find it expedites the process to first attack at least the spine with a really coarse at a 45 degree sharpening angle. That is, turn the rectangular cross section into part of an octagon before doing the sandpaper. I usually even then round the corners of the octagon with a rolling sharpening motion before using the sandpaper, but that’s just me. If you don’t want to scratch the finish when you use sandpaper, you may want to tape up the blade. Be aware that the spine and choil may look shinier than the rest of the knife after you finish, though, if you don’t refinish the rest of the blade.

 

[Midsummer]

Also be aware that with that Tanaka you are working with a soft stainless cladding. The information on classic kasumi found on soft iron clad blades will not be directly transferable; though, with practice and experimentation, I am sure you can achieve a satisfying finish for this blade.

 

[Xenif]

Welcome to the pits, fellow kasumi chaser. Couple of things here, Tanaka Nashiji is stainless clad, it not the most fun to polish and doesn't exact take on natural stones very well. If you would like to dabble in the world of jnats and kasumi, I'd start with something thats iron clad with carbon core. Most of the stuff that you hear polishers talk about are done on those kind of knives

 

[Garner Harrison]

Thanks for the advice! I guess I really should of gone a carbon steel knife >.>

The thing is though my knife is just made of one steel and not multiple types to my knowledge since the website I brought it from doesnt list more then one. So its a complete stainless knife. I just had high hopes cause Silver steel No.3 is a high carbon stainless steel but I will have to wait until I get a nice carbon steel knife to see the effects of polishing.

Tanaka Nashiji is stainless clad,

 

[XooMG]

Thanks for the advice! I guess I really should of gone a carbon steel knife >.>

The thing is though my knife is just made of one steel and not multiple types to my knowledge since the website I brought it from doesnt list more then one. So its a complete stainless knife. I just had high hopes cause Silver steel No.3 is a high carbon stainless steel but I will have to wait until I get a nice carbon steel knife to see the effects of polishing.

It is a silver3 core with a cheaper stainless steel cladding.

 

[Garner Harrison]

It is a silver3 core with a cheaper stainless steel cladding.

Does this mean I can expect a kasumi finish somewhat? Even if it isnt that great of a finish?

I really want to get the scratches out along the blade as they like trap water/cleaning product when Im cleaning it making it really annoying. But I also dont want to ruin my finish forever >.>

 

[madelinez]

Looking at your knife, I'd say there's a pretty significant chance it's been etched to produce that contrast between the cladding and core steel. If you polish it, it may be hard to replicate the same contrast. Theoretically you can create a kasumi finish on stainless clad knives, but from what I understand the easiest knives to get a traditional kasumi finish are water-quenched carbon steels that have a mild steel or wrought iron cladding.

 

[Garner Harrison]

@madelinez Ah ok thanks for the knowledge! I wonder if its worth trying out polishing to see if there still be some contrast because I really want to get the scratches out anyways.

My natural stone just arrived in one piece thankfully! Now its time for it to sit on a shelf for a long time >.>
When I heard about natural stones having smells I didnt think it'd be this strong Pretty happy I got a Jnat of a reasonable size for sub $300 AUD.

 

[jaknil]

You did well buying stones.
The synths from JNS are awsome.
Remember the 800 is a soaker, and should have 20 minutes in the water, before bering used, each time, but it is worth it.
The 6000 will leave a mirror finish.

The Hideriyama looks gorgeous.
On the phone, I'm typing on, I can't see the lacquer though.
It should be sealed. If its not, I'd give it a few layers of clear boat lacquer on the sides and bottom.

 

[Garner Harrison]

@jaknil The stone is sealed with a thin layer of lacquer, its just really faint and hard to see but it is there. If you look at the side shot of the stone, you can see it have faint orange from roughly halfway down the side.

 

[J.C]

It was reasonably priced for me and didnt cost me a fortune to ship since it was an Australian site

which site are you referring to? I didn’t know there’s a jnats dealer around

 

[madelinez]

At least chefsarmoury doesn't sell jnats anymore...