Nakayama Mitsu Asagi
Size: 223x76x43 (L x W x H)
Weight: 1.85 kg
This Nakayama mitsu-asagi is a long-size (尺長) bench stone with a stamp on the side.
It has no crack and streak on the sharpening surface. And it has hybrid sawing marks (hand and machine) left on four sides and a hand chisel mark on the back. And you may notice there is a “streak-like” pattern going through the middle of the stone, and it is certainly not the case. Instead, it is a suminagashi (墨流し) pattern that will not do anything harmful to the stone but only add a slight cosmetic feature to the stone’s appearance.
In terms of performance, it has an exceptional balancing characteristic on all hardness, fineness, and tactile feeling.
Objectively speaking, this Mitsu asagi is a hard and fine stone (around 5), for it produces a very crispy and high-pitched sound when you are knocking it when a metal spoon. However, when I am sharpening it with a kiridashi or Kanna plane, I did not get that typical “glass-like” tactile experience that I usually encountered when using Nakayama. Instead, the stone gives me a fairly moderate response (around 4-4.5) where I can easily make a long sharpening stroke without experiencing any bumpy or glassy feeling. For this reason, I don’t need to pay much attention to adjusting hand pressure to maintain a reasonable grippy feeling. And of course, you still need to pay attention to the water, where you can’t add a bunch of water to it. But again, this stone doesn’t require you to have strict water management to generate and maintain self-slurry, which essentially makes it a very user-friendly stone.
Secondly, this Mitsu asagi is a fast-cutting stone that can produce a minimal amount of self-slurry but at the same time maintain an extremely high cutting power throughout the entire sharpening session. This power is best demonstrated when I am sharpening it with the kanna plane, where the stone is able to constantly cut the blade even I had finished sharpening the plane on uchigumori. But still, the stone is able to leave the blade with a clean and scratch-free finish on both cladding and iron afterward. Specifically, the stone leaves a (semi-mirror) white foggy finish on the cladding, and a dark blue mirror finish (with a thin layer of whitish fog) on the iron.
That being said, I would say it is optional whether you want to raise a slurry using atoma or not. Personally, I don’t think it is necessary. Since the stone itself already possesses a very high cutting power and grip power, and so raising a slurry would only add a layer of “stickiness” (overly gripped) to the overall sharpening experience which I don’t really appreciate. And in terms of edge condition, I don’t think it is necessary to put too many words on it. It is an asagi after all, and so the edge is in top-notch quality without any surprise.
Overall, this is a very promising stone with a very easy-going character, for it can provide you with very solid cosmetic finishes, edge condition, as well as a satisfying sharpening experience.
Thank you as always.
Best,
Mitchell.
Size: 223x76x43 (L x W x H)
Weight: 1.85 kg
This Nakayama mitsu-asagi is a long-size (尺長) bench stone with a stamp on the side.
It has no crack and streak on the sharpening surface. And it has hybrid sawing marks (hand and machine) left on four sides and a hand chisel mark on the back. And you may notice there is a “streak-like” pattern going through the middle of the stone, and it is certainly not the case. Instead, it is a suminagashi (墨流し) pattern that will not do anything harmful to the stone but only add a slight cosmetic feature to the stone’s appearance.
In terms of performance, it has an exceptional balancing characteristic on all hardness, fineness, and tactile feeling.
Objectively speaking, this Mitsu asagi is a hard and fine stone (around 5), for it produces a very crispy and high-pitched sound when you are knocking it when a metal spoon. However, when I am sharpening it with a kiridashi or Kanna plane, I did not get that typical “glass-like” tactile experience that I usually encountered when using Nakayama. Instead, the stone gives me a fairly moderate response (around 4-4.5) where I can easily make a long sharpening stroke without experiencing any bumpy or glassy feeling. For this reason, I don’t need to pay much attention to adjusting hand pressure to maintain a reasonable grippy feeling. And of course, you still need to pay attention to the water, where you can’t add a bunch of water to it. But again, this stone doesn’t require you to have strict water management to generate and maintain self-slurry, which essentially makes it a very user-friendly stone.
Secondly, this Mitsu asagi is a fast-cutting stone that can produce a minimal amount of self-slurry but at the same time maintain an extremely high cutting power throughout the entire sharpening session. This power is best demonstrated when I am sharpening it with the kanna plane, where the stone is able to constantly cut the blade even I had finished sharpening the plane on uchigumori. But still, the stone is able to leave the blade with a clean and scratch-free finish on both cladding and iron afterward. Specifically, the stone leaves a (semi-mirror) white foggy finish on the cladding, and a dark blue mirror finish (with a thin layer of whitish fog) on the iron.
That being said, I would say it is optional whether you want to raise a slurry using atoma or not. Personally, I don’t think it is necessary. Since the stone itself already possesses a very high cutting power and grip power, and so raising a slurry would only add a layer of “stickiness” (overly gripped) to the overall sharpening experience which I don’t really appreciate. And in terms of edge condition, I don’t think it is necessary to put too many words on it. It is an asagi after all, and so the edge is in top-notch quality without any surprise.
Overall, this is a very promising stone with a very easy-going character, for it can provide you with very solid cosmetic finishes, edge condition, as well as a satisfying sharpening experience.
Thank you as always.
Best,
Mitchell.
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