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Renge suitas:

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Finally found an Aizu that doesn't leave rogue scratches that taint a kasumi, I've been keen on a fuss free kasumi that leaves a hazy matte look instead of mirror, I've been close before with aizu and natsuya but there's always those deeper little streaks that stand out. This one doesn't seem to have that problem, the best part is I got it for 50 bucks!

I also scored a limited pair of kiridashi and I was blown away by finish on them. The softer steel is so dark and without any visible scratches. I'm curious what stone they were finished on because I haven't seen anything finished as dark as that.. I wonder if it's the steel too, I want to test them out on my finishing stones to see how they come out but want to just soak in their current finish for now 😂. I'll have to ask the person I bought it off what stone was used.
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putting my aizu finish to shame
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Nice! Most of my best JNats are kind of boring-looking, and that prized dull yellow is the best kind of boring.
I like the brown ones too. They're clean consistent and cheap, what more could you ask for?
 
Picked up two new big stones. I emailed Yasuko at Ikkyu as I wanted to pick up a couple of stones mostly for edges but I'm always keen to try and polish too. She was super helpful and the stones were very reasonably priced.

I was interested in a finer Binsui as I figured it could be a nice toothy stone in the 2000ish range. I ended up getting a 2.8kg slab of a Shiro Binsui which seems ridiculously large when I mostly have cheaper little koppa. It was actually cut from a giant stone into multiple "smaller" stones. Still think some are available on the ebay store.

Def requires some help to get a slurry going but then seems to put down quite a nice even finish when polishing. It appears to burnish more than cut without the forced slurry. On the coarser side compared to my other jnats but I think it will work nicely as intended. Formed a burr quickly enough and felt like it gave a nice edge. Pictured next to a Morihei synthetic for a size comparison.

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I also picked up another aoto. I liked my narrow Aono Aoto a lot and wanted a larger one. Yasuko sourced this 1.8kg Wachi Aoto. It behaves quite differently than my previous one. Nowhere near as thirsty or muddy but still self slurries with some pressure. Actually felt a bit better with some more diamond plate slurry. Holds the water and allows the mud to break down rather than continue to release a heap of new grit. I'm pretty stoked with this tbh. Polishing still probably not its strong suit as it has left some coarser scratches looking at it but we'll see.

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This binsui is turning out to be a pretty solid stone to setup a polish after a 1000 grit stone. It absolutely needs some slurry generated or it doesn't do much. Once you have some slurry it turns black quickly and appears to do a nice job. I managed a pretty even finish on a little kiridashi and the scratches are only obvious when you look for them in harsh lighting.

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Grabbed this mystery stone. Can't figure out what it is! Any guesses??

It's the one in the middle and to it's left is aizu and to the right ikarashi. I have them next to it for colour comparison, it is mostly greyish with a very slight blue, has some slight marbling like ikarashi and comes in at 4.5 on the hardness scale by weight and size but it feels softer.

The sharpening feel is similar to ikarashi and aizu but the grit seems finer and tends to burnish more than anything, which is interesting, it seems to remove a dark kasumi quite quickly then gets to burnishing but leaves contrast and detail.

It isn't really thirsty like ikarashi or aizu. I feel like the abraisive itself must be quite soft. But whatever is holding it all together is quite dense? If that makes sense..
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I swore to myself I would never go down this rabbit hole - spending high end knife money on “rocks” but here I am.

I picked up this old hand sawn Ozuku recently. Im having a really good time learning how to use it (my first very fine finisher)

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Here’s a go on an Milan in dirty wrought cladding
 
Get ready for the epic @Bico Doce stone sales!

😁
You got me, lol! I'm not sure if Im ready to lose that type of money just yet.

For knives I love the thrill of the sale so I take a shotgun approach. With stones so far Ive been using a stone guru to help me find the right stuff. Not as much excitement but certainly helps keep the budget in check and avoid buying duds. Im afraid if I started trying to source these myself on strange japanese auction sites my wife would divorce me 😅
 
I swore to myself I would never go down this rabbit hole - spending high end knife money on “rocks” but here I am.

I picked up this old hand sawn Ozuku recently. Im having a really good time learning how to use it (my first very fine finisher)

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Here’s a go on an Milan in dirty wrought cladding

Let's see those juicy hand sawn sides!
 
Starting to build quite the collection of karasu these days, just got this one, love the patterning on it. It's much softer than all of the others I have being able to build mud with more pressure or still just cut away and produce swarf with lighter pressure.
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Got my first stone with stamps on it today. Testing it out and already seeing the stamps starting to go down the drain. I took pics first of course, but I hate seeing them go away. I know it’s all part of it, but how do you guys feel about grinding the stamps away?
 
Got this sweet Hakka suita in from a user on here. Is there a way this is classified besides suita? All I hear about is Shiro suita and other types of suita. Funny enough it looks very similar to my Hakka Tomae, I guess the stuff from the hakka mine are just very yellow?

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@jedy617

There were stone classifications by type, based on how many a person could carry down the mountain. So like a type 30 meant a person could be expected to carry 30 of those down the mountain . . . in the past.

Otherwise, Alex Gilmores Japan Stone site had some info on it, but overall, uh

Corners intact
Lines
Small patterns in the stone
Consistency of Color
Any big su (yours has some on the surface I think)
Any flaking
Transitions of color or layer
Kawa skin on side or back
Hand sawn or rotating saw
whether its from an eastern or western kyoto mine (relatively speaking), or another mine area

Shiro suita are super hard usually -- the deep layer ones. Shiro just means white, and I've seen it applied to shallow layer stones too if they are white and suita.

Basically these are all just observations, observe then and yeah, thats how stones are described
 
@jedy617

There were stone classifications by type, based on how many a person could carry down the mountain. So like a type 30 meant a person could be expected to carry 30 of those down the mountain . . . in the past.

Otherwise, Alex Gilmores Japan Stone site had some info on it, but overall, uh

Corners intact
Lines
Small patterns in the stone
Consistency of Color
Any big su (yours has some on the surface I think)
Any flaking
Transitions of color or layer
Kawa skin on side or back
Hand sawn or rotating saw
whether its from an eastern or western kyoto mine (relatively speaking), or another mine area

Shiro suita are super hard usually -- the deep layer ones. Shiro just means white, and I've seen it applied to shallow layer stones too if they are white and suita.

Basically these are all just observations, observe then and yeah, thats how stones are described
Interesting, good to know!
 
Got my first stone with stamps on it today. Testing it out and already seeing the stamps starting to go down the drain. I took pics first of course, but I hate seeing them go away. I know it’s all part of it, but how do you guys feel about grinding the stamps away?
It’s bittersweet. It means I’m actually using the piece of rock I paid how much for(?!), but also loses a piece of itself. Consider it the price of knowledge gained.

One stamp half lingers on one of my stones. One day it’ll be gone and then I’ll have a nice completely flat big gray suita that I might know how to use properly. Maybe.

This hinging on the stamps being authentic of course. Which we all know is a complete crapshoot. So maybe it means nothing, but I haven’t lapped off a fake maruka stamp before so what do I know?
 
It’s bittersweet. It means I’m actually using the piece of rock I paid how much for(?!), but also loses a piece of itself. Consider it the price of knowledge gained.

One stamp half lingers on one of my stones. One day it’ll be gone and then I’ll have a nice completely flat big gray suita that I might know how to use properly. Maybe.

This hinging on the stamps being authentic of course. Which we all know is a complete crapshoot. So maybe it means nothing, but I haven’t lapped off a fake maruka stamp before so what do I know?
I wish the retailers would stamp the sides of the stone more often, then it wouldn't be a problem. I love the way the stamps look.
 
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