Making finger stones - my first attempt

[malexthekid]

I think the other thing people may be overlooking is the variability in natural stones. They are not uniform in any which way, and it may be that which is actually the key factor.

Harder particles mixed in with softer producing this effect.

If as farnorth says its just about finding a stone that works on softer not harder steel than that is easily replicated just have to.do the science on it

 

[Farnorth]

Ok but are you lumping all sandpaper into one catergory? Silicon, alum oxide, ceramic and many others all have different cutting characteristics. As well, the bonding method and the backing they are mounted to all impact the results. The function of any abrasive is that it's harder than the thing is abrading. This is as much true for natural stones as it it for synthetics. The variablility in the use of finger stones tells me not one stone fits all, which also meams not one abrasive fits all, and therefore not one synthetic fits all. You may have found the right stone for a particular knife but you may not have found the right paper and block combo. The only thing i can see where the stone might excel is longevity as it's obviously thicker than a piece of paper with a single layer of abrasive.

I do understand that not all papers are the same, but still feel that naturals have different effects from available papers. If you are interested you can PM me your address and I will send you a flattened piece of one of the Kiita finger stones that I got from Maxim recently. It wasn't expensive and I am in Canada too so should only cost a stamp. It will be ready to go, just add water and see what you think.

 

[bennyprofane]

Will slurry which was created with a nagura collected on a piece of cloth or a cork act like a finger stone?

 

[hambone.johnson]

Will slurry which was created with a nagura collected on a piece of cloth or a cork act like a finger stone?

I have done this and find the process to be slower, you will see some results and there are some YouTube videos and I think I have seen some long standing members post a similar process. It will work tho.

I have saved the dust from flattening my Uchi finger stones dry and keep it in a bag, it helps to creates a little slurry off this and apply it right onto desired area for polishing and then put the stone on the slurry and start, it speeds up the process and gives me something to work with right away.

 

[RDalman]

There's a synthetic alternative possibly available in a wide array of hardness/shape/size. I heard good things about them and have been looking. Never tried though, just came to think of them

http://www.gesswein.com/p-290-diemaker-polishing-stones.aspx

 

[zetieum]

i had a try today. I followed your guide and the video of Maksim and went for it.
I flattened the finger stones on a 400 atoma, it was extremely fast.

Altogether, it took me no time to have a usable finger stone. Like 10 min if you exclude the waiting time for the glue. BTW, I used some leather glue I had there. Worked like a charm. Clearly, it is much more complicated to explain than to do it. I was afraid it was a big job, it was extremely easy.

I think I made it too fine: after 2 knives, it was all gone.

Here is the result on my little Carter (the pic is not of good quality, sorry). But I think it rocks.

 

[Matus]

Excellent! That was exactly my point. It is not hard at all. Yes - the very soft finger stones last very short. I have spend about 8 (!) on 1 225 mm gyuto. Harder finger stones last longer, but you also need to be more careful not to scratch the blade. I have bought one of those 50g stones from 330mage_com on ebay and those are considerably harder than a Takashima or Ohira (which is most probably what I got from Maxim as Tomo Nagura Extra - that is information from Maxim). I need to experiment more

 

[Jurrian]

Hi, I’ve been diving into this topic and am expanding my natural stone collection, bought some koppa uchi just now to make fingerstones. In the book the art of Japanese sword polishing (great tip!) the writers argue that a full progression of naturals or synthetics up to the nagura progression would bring out the details of the jigane and hagane and the details between the two, like the hamon. Argument that only natural stones can bring out the details is that the particle size of the synthetics won’t break down like the naturals do. There is a lot more to say from the theory, I hope to progress my skills and bring it to practice