Help transitioning to jnats from Shaptons

[Dan-]

I have read thousands of posts now, and it has made me realize I should ask for help from the experts (you all).

I have a mix of Shapton pros and glasses: 500, 1k, 2k, 5k, 8k. And an Atoma 140 to flatten them. I’m pretty good at sharpening and get good results, but the experience is sometimes lacking.
Like I’m iffy on the 5k and don’t particularly like the 8k.

I have a mix of knife types (single and double) in carbons, pm steels (all set), and stainless, and they all have different claddings of course. Where I’d like to start is two-fold:
1) keep my kasumi Toyama nakiri looking her best, and if I get frustrated with the stainless clad, pick up a dama (yeah, I know)
2) replace my 8k and likely the 5k
C) keep my debas and yanagi happy

I see various stones mentioned, but when I search for them, even using the glossary and all, they’re long out of stock or, you know, $800+ each. Most of the test photos of polish look the same to me at this point too.

Can you recommend a set of 3? jnats for a total of $800ish that can actually be bought and that accomplish my objectives? Seems like that’s a pre-finisher, a finisher, and something soft for kasumi, but I could be totally off there. I also understand I should add a Nagura and/or dedicated Atoma 400 to the mix, and that’d be in addition to the stated budget.

What I saw so far that seemed ok was a mix of :
Aiiwatani lvl 3.5 from JNS or maybe 2.5 with an awasedo from Jon?
Hideriyama (redundant?) from Jon
And something soft which I’m having trouble identifying

Oh and splash and go because I can’t keep small bricks in water.

Can y’all help?

 

[ethompson]

The pair Bazes has up seems like a good 2 stone setup. Give what you have and your use case.

Otherwise, I’d just get one nice clean soft suita ($350-600 depending on stone) and start there.

Contrary to what I’d love to believe, you don’t need a huge progression or deep stacks of stones to get good kasumi results and very nice edges.

 

[Rangen]

A couple of starting points: JNats are not ever permasoaked, at least I never heard of such a thing. And you can probably postpone the Nagura and the dedicated Atoma 400. An Atoma 140 that has been worn down by repeated flattening of SG stones should do fine.

 

[Cliff]

1) keep my kasumi Toyama nakiri looking her best, and if I get frustrated with the stainless clad, pick up a dama (yeah, I know)
...
C) keep my debas and yanagi happy

If you have the stainless clad Toyama, I don't think you need naturals to keep the kasumi looking good. It should stay fine, though you could experiment with finishes.

I like to finish my Yanagi with a hard, fine natural stone. I think Ohira Tomae is readily available and not too expensive. For butchery, something rougher makes sense. I often finish with a hard, blue Aoto. I think Shaptons are good for the Ura.

 

[Dan-]

The pair Bazes has up seems like a good 2 stone setup. Given what you have and your use case.

They are sold

I really do appreciate the advice. If I really wanted to replace the 5 and 8, and especially the 8, what would that be? I kinda picked up that polishing is an “it depends” thing.

 

[ethompson]

They are sold

I really do appreciate the advice. If I really wanted to replace the 5 and 8, and especially the 8, what would that be? I kinda picked up that polishing is an “it depends” thing.

If you want to leave synthetics for naturals at 2k, you’ll need something like an Aizu or ikarashi or similar nakato to enable that. From there you’d need something like a soft suita or uchigumori and then a harder finer finisher if you wanted.

Feel free to me a PM and I’ll get back to you later this week. I have so many excess stones right now I could probably find 2-3 that could get your sorted or point you towards someone else who might have something.

 

[Choppin]

Not exactly what you asked, but I would consider getting some good quality fingerstones. Then use your Shaptons to get a mirror core on the Toyama and then fingerstone the cladding. It’s the easiest way to get a nice kasumi, specially considering the Toyama has convex bevels which are tricky to polish on stones.

 

[ared715]

+1 on PM to @ethompson. I think he just may have enough stones to let a few go.....

The reason I suggest moving forward in conversation with him is you'll be getting a high quality, and most importantly, fully tested stone which definitely has its advantages as you won't be buying blindly.

Welcome to the rabbit hole!

 

[Dan-]

Oh I PMed him yesterday.

 

[ared715]

Nice! Hope you enjoy! I really think you'll enjoy the tactile feel with naturals while sharpening compared to the monotone aspect that synthetics tend to offer.