Confused by my sharpening stones (?!)

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Adrian Chan

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Nov 1, 2018
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Location
Carlisle, United Kingdom
So I'm at a bit of a crossroad with my stones - I don't really know what to do, or whether I have a gap to fill.
I'm a home cook so very very rarely need anything in the rough grits, unless I chip a knife which is nearly never, and I have a 320 shapton glass for that. Knives are mainly carbon steel - W1, W3(?), B1, AS and a lone R2 that the partner uses.
Other than that I have an Amakusa (which is what i usually start on), a King 1200 (which I'm looking into replacing as I'd like to just stick to splash and go stones), a Naniwa Aotoshi, Arashiyama 6k and Kitayama 8k (The two fine grits I picked up in Asia on a cheap).
I've been working on my skills to polish a blade edge and seems like I'm able to do so to my satisfaction, but I've been wanting to work on a Kasumi finish, and have somewhat realised that I don't have the right stones. I've also only got the nagura stone that came with the Arashiyama/Kitayama, and a pink flattener although I'm going to get a diamond plate soon.

So the question is, are there any recommendations on a stone that would possibly help with my collection, and also perhaps a decent replacement for the King?
I've mostly ruled out natural stones apart from the amakusa esque ones as they're affordable so looking at synthetic mainly. Based in the UK, so who knows whether I still belong to the EU shopping market in 21 days time....but so far I'll take that I am able to do so.

Thank you!
 
I"m not a skilled polisher and have come to accept some scuffs on a blade. When I've tried my hand at kasumi the limited success I've had has been with soaking stones. A good 800 grit will work well for a foundation and then you can move up to where you want to be. I've tried some S&G - not very forgiving.

BTW, there is (was?) a well priced JNS 800 on bst now though shipping to EU may be prohibitive. Excellent stone and Maxim has frequent sales on new ones.
 
Yes, I think the JNS stones work well. He also has a very muddy 3K (people like to soak it, but it works just fine splash-and-go) and 6K that leave good contrast.
 
Honestly king mid grit stones are very good for putting a kasumi finish on wide bevels.

If I wanted to have a stone setup just for polishing I think what I would go for would be something like this.

Cerax 320
King deluxe 800
King deluxe 1200
Naniwa aotoshi 2000(I haven't used it but I've heard it's muddy)
Suehiro Rika 5000
The maybe the arashiyama since you already have it.

From there honestly I might switch over to naturals, something soft and muddy first then work up to something that is a bit harder and finer.

If you aren't interested in natural stones, maybe you could try to finish on the kitayama, I have one. It seems like it has some larger particles mixed in that give some unsightly scratches to my finish, but maybe that's just my stone.
 
With that said, you can honestly make the stones you have work for you. It just takes practice, practice, and more practice.
 
IME Naniwa Aotoshi is HORRIBLE for Kasumi finishes. I dont really like that stone at all, other than for use with softer stainless.

You should have the stones you need to produce a Kasumi finish. There are stones that may make it easier, but you should be able to get there.

Id just go King 1200 - Arashiyama 6000. Light pressure was always the key for me. Dont move to tthe 6000 until you see what you want from the 1200
 
if you just want splashers for sharpening i'd go for shapton pro 1k and 2k. these are very good. they can produce a quite good kasumi contrast with some work.

stones for super easy and even kasumi imo

cerax/ouka 3k. this is one of the best i've tried. this one is a soaker and takes a week to dry out.

naniwa pro 2k. very similar finish to the ouka but i think its easier to get an even finish without silver streaks than the ouka.
takes a day to dry.

cleancut kitayama 4k. not as easy as the other 2 and not as much contrast (since its a finer stone) but good. basically splash and go.

even finer is the gray glass 6k (hc series), very refined and nice, but not easy to get there.

cerax 8k, good contrast for a high grit stone. takes a week to dry.

in the low grits i like the naniwa pro 800, its better than king hyper regular 1k. but the finish it leaves is too coarse to be usable. it feels like a sandpaper (as all coarse stone finishes does, just so you know). the coarser the stone, the more contrast you get.

the really nice finishes imo is when the edge steel is almost mirror and the cladding is hazy. and you get that from about 4k or so i'd say. ymmv!

shops: dictum, fine-tools, knivesandtools.
i prefer dictum and fine-tools. and cleancut.
 
Thank you all. A lot for me to digest there, and definitely agree that I can do it with what's existing.

The Amakusa that I start with seems to fill the rough ish end quite well - and I think most are right with the King 1200, but I really just don't want to go through the rituals of soaking it etc - drying space (for multiple days) is of a premium (non existent) in a humble house without that much spare space.

The Aotoshi as I've tried is terrible for a kasumi - great for a mirror though. I've tried with the arashiyama and kitayama, and ended up with mirrors on both too, not complaining about the finish, just wasn't what I was trying to achieve.

I've also found the Morihei Hishiboshi 1k but can't find a lot about it, althought the 4k seems to be a great kasumi stone according to posts I've found and read, which may sit quite nicely in the gaps.

There's also the question of - if I've polished it to relatively shiny with the aotoshi, can I still work towards a kasumi finish with a 4k stone, or just have to start from lower grits? (presuming answer is the latter by logic) but it's only silly if you don't ask and pretend that you know!
 
Thank you all. A lot for me to digest there, and definitely agree that I can do it with what's existing.

The Amakusa that I start with seems to fill the rough ish end quite well - and I think most are right with the King 1200, but I really just don't want to go through the rituals of soaking it etc - drying space (for multiple days) is of a premium (non existent) in a humble house without that much spare space.

The Aotoshi as I've tried is terrible for a kasumi - great for a mirror though. I've tried with the arashiyama and kitayama, and ended up with mirrors on both too, not complaining about the finish, just wasn't what I was trying to achieve.

I've also found the Morihei Hishiboshi 1k but can't find a lot about it, althought the 4k seems to be a great kasumi stone according to posts I've found and read, which may sit quite nicely in the gaps.

There's also the question of - if I've polished it to relatively shiny with the aotoshi, can I still work towards a kasumi finish with a 4k stone, or just have to start from lower grits? (presuming answer is the latter by logic) but it's only silly if you don't ask and pretend that you know!
For the arashiyama if you want to put a kasumi finish on a knife with it you need to use your nagura to raise a lot of slurry (or a diamond plate) then just mess around with the amount of water you add, and the amount of pressure you use. Extremely light pressure seems to be where I get the best contrast. Same goes for the kitayama. It's all about technique.
 
Ah. I guess I really need to work a lot harder on raising a slurry. For some reason I seem to struggle to do so but maybe I’m not doing it right. Time to look for some videos......
Thank you again, I’ll try and work on the pressure next time I sharpen
 
Does anyone have a clue what the grit on the Arashiyama nagura is? Supposedly the Naniwa one is something like 600 grit, so you're pretty much polluting your own stone if you raise a slurry with it, but I don't know what the situation on the Arashiyama is? I've been a bit cautious with it so far.
 
From Naniwa:

The Naniwa Nagura Stones are offered in ten different grits, from 220 to 12000. Naguras are particularly helpful for polishing, so a good approach is to choose a nagura that is the same grit or higher than your finest water stone. For instance, if your finest water stone is an 8000 grit, we would recommend an 8000, 10000 or 12000 nagura.
 
I know which ones you mean but I've never seen those for sale anywhere in Europe... only know about them because I saw them at Metalmaster at some point. But the stone I referred to is the 'dressing stone', which was commonly sold as nagura in Europe.

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Naniwa-Nagura-Dressing-Stone-P496.aspx
That puppy.

But my question is about the nagura that comes with the Arashiyama... For all I know it's a white crayon.
 
When I bought mine they were already called Naniwa Professional and no extra stone was in the box anymore. That dressing stone was something you had to buy seperately. Being an idiot I bought it because the shop called it a nagura thinking it would give me a finer polish...
 
Does anyone have a clue what the grit on the Arashiyama nagura is? Supposedly the Naniwa one is something like 600 grit, so you're pretty much polluting your own stone if you raise a slurry with it, but I don't know what the situation on the Arashiyama is? I've been a bit cautious with it so far.
Not sure. I know the one that came with my kitayama works fine for polishing. I bought the 8000 grit nagura king offers a while back, and that's all I use for my synthetic stones above 1200 grit now. It was pretty cheap.
 
Thank you all. A lot for me to digest there, and definitely agree that I can do it with what's existing.

The Amakusa that I start with seems to fill the rough ish end quite well - and I think most are right with the King 1200, but I really just don't want to go through the rituals of soaking it etc - drying space (for multiple days) is of a premium (non existent) in a humble house without that much spare space.

The Aotoshi as I've tried is terrible for a kasumi - great for a mirror though. I've tried with the arashiyama and kitayama, and ended up with mirrors on both too, not complaining about the finish, just wasn't what I was trying to achieve.

I've also found the Morihei Hishiboshi 1k but can't find a lot about it, althought the 4k seems to be a great kasumi stone according to posts I've found and read, which may sit quite nicely in the gaps.

There's also the question of - if I've polished it to relatively shiny with the aotoshi, can I still work towards a kasumi finish with a 4k stone, or just have to start from lower grits? (presuming answer is the latter by logic) but it's only silly if you don't ask and pretend that you know!
So here a couple of pictures showing the contrast from a kitayama.
20201211_190337.jpg

This one is using the nagura that came with it.
20201211_194238.jpg

This one is with an atoma slurry

If you look to the left of the second picture it will show why I dont like to use my kitayama for finishing. Hopefully I just got a bad one that somehow ended up with random larger particles, and this isn't something that happens with all of them.
 
So here a couple of pictures showing the contrast from a kitayama.
View attachment 106085
This one is using the nagura that came with it.
View attachment 106086
This one is with an atoma slurry

If you look to the left of the second picture it will show why I dont like to use my kitayama for finishing. Hopefully I just got a bad one that somehow ended up with random larger particles, and this isn't something that happens with all of them.
I wonder if those random scratches are from a loose diamond from the Atoma?
 
I wonder if those random scratches are from a loose diamond from the Atoma?
No, they are there when I use the my nagura stones too. I didn't post pictures of it, but I used my king nagura to see how it compared. The did the atoma last. I didn't post the picture of the king nagura finish because it looked identical to the atoma finish, the random little scratches happen no matter what. Its really annoying to me, honestly.
 
you get those with many stones. king hyper for instance. also the ouka (can be worked out though). the naniwa pros seems immune to this.
 
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