Finger Stones?

[Heckel7302]

I'd like to step up my polishing game a bit and thinking of getting some finger stones, as I'm not ready to step into the Jnat bench stone waters just yet (maybe ever). I'm really out of my element in terms of what to get. Any advice from the good people of KKF? Here is what I've found as options

From JNS

Uchigumori Finger Stones

Uchigomori finger stones

Premium Quality Uchigomori sword grade from Japanese Natural Stones. Buy all kind of Uchigomori sword grade, and Sharpening Stones. Read Reviews for Uchigomori sword grade from people accross the globe and choose as per your needs. Uchigomori sword gradeis one of most popular Sharpening Stones...

www.japanesenaturalstones.com

Kiita Finger Stones

Kiita Fingerstones

Premium Quality Uchigomori sword grade from Japanese Natural Stones. Buy all kind of Uchigomori sword grade, and Sharpening Stones. Read Reviews for Uchigomori sword grade from people accross the globe and choose as per your needs. Uchigomori sword gradeis one of most popular Sharpening Stones...

www.japanesenaturalstones.com

Various from Namikawa

Natural Stone | Polishing Stones | Namikawa Heibei Co Ltd

Natural Stone・Sale of the whetstone, sword attached article, and sword care tools for swords. A Heibe Namikawa store is a whetstone specialty store for swords in foundation 1850 which has a real-world shop in Meguro-ku, Tokyo. the Imperial Household Agency and government-agencies business.

www.namikawa-ltd.com

Aframes has these

Ohira Uchigumori for Jizuya or Hazuya 3.6oz. (100.8g) Finger Stone

www.aframestokyo.com

Protooling AU has some Morihei ones, but all they have in stock are a little too expensive for this first foray.
Everything at Hitohira is OOS.
Watanabe's Uchigumori finger stones sold out

Anywhere else I should be looking? I see some on ebay, but that seems pretty risky, espeically since I've never used them before and would have no reference to know if I just bought a bag of useless rocks.

What is the difference between Hazuya and Jizuya? Do I understand it correctly that Hazuya is slightly coarser? Or the stones are called uchigumori and Hazuya and Jizuya are techniques? It's all a bit confusing. Any insight would be greatly appreicated. I searched through the forums but, you know, the search function on KKF is...lacking...couldn't find any posts that gave me great insight.

 

[ethompson]

What are you trying to accomplish via finger-stones and what type of knives are you working with? That will help people get you zeroed in on what the best options are. Depending on what you need I probably have something that will work I can send you to start playing around with. I've smashed up a lot of little scrap stones in the last year...

Having fallen down this rabbit hole, I'm of the opinion that finger stones are really best for rounding out very high-grade polish work and that you need a good spread to find which ones play best with your steel. Unlike a bench stone, finger stones won't really remove scratches and improve the base finish - unless of course you have a ton of them. They are great for smoothing out streaks in your finish from imperfect technique and finessing the details of a polish. In general, I've found the softer stones are more versatile and easier to use. The only really economical way to build up a stockpile is to buy a bunch of koppas and take a hammer and chisel to them yourself.

If you're looking for something more point and shoot for evening out a final polish and adding some kasumi mistiness, I'd get a good quantity of Uchigumori powder (Namikawa's works well for me) and use that after getting everything else polished as well as you can on whatever stones you have. I use felt furniture pads attached to corks to rub the mud in.

As for search, you are 100% right, the native function is lacking. You'll get your best results using google. Search what you're looking for followed by site:kitchenknifeforums.com to limit results to results from here, much much better.

 

[Heckel7302]

Wow, thanks. Here are the knives I have:

Mazaki Sujihiki White #2 270
Wakui Gyuto White #2 240
Takada No Hamono "Suiboku" Gyuto Blue #1 240
Takeda "Small" NAS Gyuto 210
Shibata Kotetsu Bunka R2 180
Watanabe Pro Nakiri 180
Moritaka Honesuki Blue #2 150
Kato (Kintaro) Petty VG10 150
Morihei Kiridashi White #1 50

I will be adding a hitohira Togashi wide bevel (White 1 stainless clad) in the near future. The only ones of the above that I've played around with polishing are the Moritaka Honesuki and the Kiridashi, but will eventually get the courage to mess around with the Wakui, Wat, and Maz.

Using NP400/800/3000 I got the bevels of the Moritaka smooth and scratch free, albeit pretty streaky with the NP3K despite many attempts with various amounts of slurry and pressure. I used the 6K side of my cheapo KW65, which evened things out nicely and gave good contrast, but it could be better.

In the end I like rubbing steel with rocks and want to continue to experiment and learn. Finger stones seemed like a logical next step in the polishing journey. I thought about powder too, but seems somehow less enticing than the finger stones. Maybe I'll try both...

 

[ethompson]

In the end I like rubbing steel with rocks and want to continue to experiment and learn. Finger stones seemed like a logical next step in the polishing journey. I thought about powder too, but seems somehow less enticing than the finger stones. Maybe I'll try both...

Given this sentiment, you probably should just start looking for a bench stone. If you're patient you'll find smaller or oddly shaped ones that are great to use but not collectible for not that much on here. Probably worth putting out a WTB too. I totally agree that there is something more appealing and romantic about finger stones vs powder.