Hard Aizu?

[gentiscid]

Got this big boy “Aizu” from Auctions and gave it a try. Hard to build a slurry with no Atoma. Knife looked like didnt even sharpen, switched to Aoto and created slurry right away… left some scuffs (high) due to incosistency but at the end after stropping could slice tomato horizontally easy but not arm hair…

Ideas if this Aizu is not authentic (only one side seems sealed) or should I use atoma to create slurry… Home use here, nothing fancy!

Thanks

 

[ethompson]

Hate to break it to you, my friend, but that aint an Aizu. That said, there are tons of cool useful nakato (medium grit natural whetstones), so may very well be great!

 

[ethompson]

I’d say it’s maybe a sasaguchi or numata.

@naader is the king of esoteric midgrits, maybe he can help

 

[gentiscid]

Hate to break it to you, my friend, but that isn’t an Aizu from what I can tell.

I was affraid of that too… lol. Reason I bought it listed as Aizu and I saw myself in a bidding war So I thought it was authentic. Lol it looks more for stropping than sharpening tho lmao

 

[ethompson]

Auction stones are always a gamble, I’ve gotten great stones for very little and lost a lot of money on stones that looked really incredible and had higher prices. Having made detailed pricing notes for everything over the last 18 months, I’ve netted out to paying basically western retail for all the keepers. So… yeah, retailers are giving fair prices for tested stones lol

 

[gentiscid]

Auction stones are always a gamble, I’ve gotten great stones for very little and lost a lot of money on stones that looked really incredible and had higher prices. So… yeah, retailers are giving fair prices for tested stones lol

Guess we all learn the hard way somehow lol. Guess I gotta keep an eye here in BST for a real Aizu then. Meanwhile not sure what I’m going to do with this brick. Worst scenario, door stopper lol.

 

[ethompson]

Door stops, paper weights, etc.

I've started lining one of my mothers flower beds with dud stones...

 

[Hassanbensober]

+1 looks like sasaguchi stone.

 

[gentiscid]

+1 looks like sasaguchi stone.

Is it worth keeping and using? and if so, how and what for?

 

[Hassanbensober]

These or at least the ones I have are very hard and really grainy. I haven’t found a great use for mine to tell you honestly. I think maybe they could be useful on farm tools. I’m no expert though.

 

[naader]

Sasaguchi/matsuura is a softer sand stone.
I've actually had a stone exactly like that one and big too, like 320x80x100 and I can tell you right now, it works fantastic at hiding the pond tarp on one of the more visually exposed parts of my parents yard.

Impossibly hard and impractically coarse. Best used for decoration or civil disobedience.

 

[naader]

These or at least the ones I have are very hard and really grainy. I haven’t found a great use for mine to tell you honestly. I think maybe they could be useful on farm tools. I’m no expert though.

Real matsuura are useless now. Used to be used for shaping swords, they're soft and coarse enough to remove material consistently, evenly and without gouging or tearing. They're pretty crappy compared to similar synths and I think that's saying a lot, coarse stones are almost all disgustingly bad.

 

[naader]

Is it worth keeping and using? and if so, how and what for?

Keeping and using at a riot or on a home intruder, sure. Don't put your knives on it though

 

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Looks similar to this.

Blog on Fukushima stones

 

[refcast]

The grains on the side of the stone give it away as being something a bit more coarse. The kind of glossiness or harshness in how it reflects light suggests it's a harder stone which it seems to be. And the grains on the stone surface also look coarse, while aizu looks like velvet with no discernable grains, aside from white spots, and occasional black range. The renge appears in other stones so that's confusing.

Really though, I buy stones on how they look more than what the sellers had said to me on Yahoo auction because they can lie ... A decent amount

The color is almost like aizu, but slightly greyer brown than any I've seen before. If in doubt, find other stones on the web and slurry pictures you know to be legit, and use that as reference. Some stones only work with diamond plate, and some sellers show the diamond plate slurry instead of the real self-slurry of the stone.

I've had my share of doorstop stones haha ugh

 

[gentiscid]

The grains on the side of the stone give it away as being something a bit more coarse. The kind of glossiness or harshness in how it reflects light suggests it's a harder stone which it seems to be. And the grains on the stone surface also look coarse, while aizu looks like velvet with no discernable grains, aside from white spots, and occasional black range. The renge appears in other stones so that's confusing.

Really though, I buy stones on how they look more than what the sellers had said to me on Yahoo auction because they can lie ... A decent amount

The color is almost like aizu, but slightly greyer brown than any I've seen before. If in doubt, find other stones on the web and slurry pictures you know to be legit, and use that as reference. Some stones only work with diamond plate, and some sellers show the diamond plate slurry instead of the real self-slurry of the stone.

I've had my share of doorstop stones haha ugh

It does look coarser grain on the side and harder surface, but I haven’t tried it with Atoma slurry yet. Will do try and let you know. Thanks. Might use it for axes, pikes, shovels etc lmao

Reason I bought it was I found myself in a bidding war in NeoKyo but not sure if it was a shill bid war lmao

 

[gentiscid]

Looks similar to this.

Blog on Fukushima stones

Yeah! I had 3 other Aizus in posession after this “AiZu” and the feel is different in sharpening and slurry.

 

[Dan-]

You could sharpen your shovels with it

 

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Yeah! I had 3 other Aizus in posession after this “AiZu” and the feel is different in sharpening and slurry.

Yes, I shared because I think we underestimate the breadth and diversity of what an Aizu can look like. However, if the stone performs terribly, that’s another matter all together.