Help identifying jnats

Wabisabi-Ken · Jul 22, 2022

Hey team, due to my limited experience I am after some help identifying some unknown jnats I recently scored. All I was told is theyre narutaki and that's it. They all behave somewhat similarly, at LV 4 hardness according to area/weight. They self slurry easily with a dark mud, and feel soft and buttery smooth while polishing single bevel. Leaves a nice contrast with no scratching. On the sides you can see all of the very fine layers stacked on each other. Also they seem quite fragile, like flaky, I can see lines in between some layers, I'll definitely seal them up.

Any help?

#1

Side shot of layers

#2 grey with some patches of pink renge

#3 lighter grey with a patchy yellowish tint

cotedupy · Jul 22, 2022

Umm... they look like they're probably suita I think (?)

What other things were you wondering about...?

Wabisabi-Ken · Jul 22, 2022

cotedupy said:
Umm... they look like they're probably suita I think (?)

What other things were you wondering about...?

Haha that's a good question, honestly I just want to find out any information that I can about them.. I was guessing they're suita but I have no idea. I am clueless when it comes to different types etc but am keen to learn. So thought if I could get any information on their possible types and origin or anything like that then I would be able to learn more about them.

At the end of the day though it's about how they perform I guess!

ethompson · Jul 22, 2022

There are people around who have forgotten more about Jnats that I know, but I know enough to say trying to ascertain exact mines for unmarked stones is a fools errand. They’re definitely all suita, and more so they all look like flavors of eastern mine suita I’ve seen before. If they were sold to you as Narutaki, I wouldn’t see any reason to doubt it unless the seller was using that as justification for a high price and was someone who gave you slightly sketchy vibes. On the other hand you can’t be 100% certain.

As for the flakey-ness… I’ve had two stones now like that. One I salvaged by lapping off a healthy amount off the top to expose fresh healthy stone underneath. The other basically crumbled away. I’m told this can happen if the stones are stored improperly for long periods of time - usually exposed to sunlight and the elements. I’d definitely recommend rounding all the edges before sealing, I’ve found that helps a lot with durability on fragile suita in particular.