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A rather excellent gift from a friend arrived yesterday: four very fine polishing stones. I've only given each of them a quick 2 min try out so far (they need sealing) but it's fair to say I am mildly impressed :).

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A while back i bought a bundle off a fellow canadian and which included 4 stones including the final few mm of a cerax 320 and 3000, i used them several times and unfortunately they have both now broken, however i liked them so much i have now bought brand new ones! So thank you again to @ModRQC !
Also grabbed the 140 atoma with a handle and a bottle of kasumi powder from toshos sale this week
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tag98 said:
A while back i bought a bundle off a fellow canadian and which included 4 stones including the final few mm of a cerax 320 and 3000, i used them several times and unfortunately they have both now broken, however i liked them so much i have now bought brand new ones! So thank you again to @ModRQC !
Also grabbed the 140 atoma with a handle and a bottle of kasumi powder from toshos sale this weekView attachment 178488
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T’was written in the sky.

You can always turn what’s left of the Ouka into polishing powder as well.
 
blokey said:
Gesshin 2k straight from JKI

View attachment 176816View attachment 176815

Edit: just used, fantastic stone, took all my knives’ biteness to 10.
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Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

If you don’t own this stone, go buy it.

If you want the same bite at 4k, buy the JKI 4k. Then sell all your other inferior sharpening gear (or keep an enormous stone library like me for “historical reasons”, or some other similar claptrap).
 
Not new sharpening gear, but has anyone got the jki synthetic natural to work? I swear I can never get a decent edge. I tell myself I’m a bad sharpener, then spend 30 seconds on the 2k, 4k, or a cheese grater, and get an edge I like. Do you need to grind through a millimeter before you get to the good stuff? I’ve run a diamond plate across it a bit, but do I need to do more?
 
A month or so ago I was taking some quality 'me time' to enjoy a Monday afternoon pub crawl round Hobart, when I noticed that my penultimate stop turned out to have a leather dealer next door. So I nipped out and bought a bit of dead kangaroo to make into strops.

Firstly a hanging strop for razors, basically copying my other one.

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Then I had enough left to cut some out and stick it on a bit of wood, for a knife strop.

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Twelve dollarydoos well spent I think!
 
(Also caught covid probably during the same pub crawl, but swings n roundabouts eh! At least I wasn’t the kangaroo.)
 
mrmoves92 said:
I am really interested in how you like the Suehiro Debado MD-20 once you have used it for a little bit.
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I did some bevel setting with it on a small 1095 belt knife yesterday, not enough work to get a complete feel for it but I was pleased, in any case. I bought the MD-20 with hopes it would cut like my coarse Norton India does when its not loaded up—I do enough repair work in single sessions to bog it down—and I think the cutting speed and feedback will be similar. The extra width will be excellent for 12” chef knives and single bevel work, as well. I recommend prepping the surface with the included nagura type stone.

For anyone who may care, I will say this regarding the MD-100. I touched up my forgecraft chefs and a white no 1 bunka on it and I am more than happy with its performance. In the seemingly endless discussion surrounding grit range, SnG vs soakers, and the rest, this stone is a standout for me in the 1k world. True splash n go with impressive speed and feel; hard and creamy like SG. Finer finish than King 1000, approaching Shapton Pro 2k type bite. Excited to work with it.
 
captaincaed said:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

If you don’t own this stone, go buy it.

If you want the same bite at 4k, buy the JKI 4k. Then sell all your other inferior sharpening gear (or keep an enormous stone library like me for “historical reasons”, or some other similar claptrap).
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Cote,

What type of stones are these, from left to right? You're getting pretty good at the kasumi finishes.
 
Grayswandir said:
Cote,

What type of stones are these, from left to right? You're getting pretty good at the kasumi finishes.
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Ta! I think I'm getting there, slowly :).

They were: King 800, King 1200, a very old Iyo stone, Maruoyama Shiro Suita, stone from my friend (it's an incredibly fine and quite soft mudstone/slate affair, fairly similar to some jnats).
 
cotedupy said:
Ta! I think I'm getting there, slowly :).

They were: King 800, King 1200, a very old Iyo stone, Maruoyama Shiro Suita, stone from my friend (it's an incredibly fine and quite soft mudstone/slate affair, fairly similar to some jnats).
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I'm sorry, I meant the three natural stones above the synthetics, two were gray, and the last one was a darker color.
 
Grayswandir said:
I'm sorry, I meant the three natural stones above the synthetics, two were gray, and the last one was a darker color.
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Ah, they were the stones my friend gave me. They're very soft and incredibly fine slate/mudstones. The Pinkish one is the softest, the middle blue-grey one is similar though a little harder you can see at the end of the stone that it's transitioning into the pink stone, and the darker one is harder still and a little coarser. Though all of these are insanely fine-grained and soft stones, that want to mirror jigane and will self slurry with ease.

This is them wet:

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And this is a abandoned quarry, deep in the heart of the Australian bush that he hikes to, to find them. I call it the 'Valley of Death Quarry'

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cotedupy said:
Ah, they were the stones my friend gave me. They're very soft and incredibly fine slate/mudstones. The Pinkish one is the softest, the middle blue-grey one is similar though a little harder you can see at the end of the stone that it's transitioning into the pink stone, and the darker one is harder still and a little coarser. Though all of these are insanely fine-grained and soft stones, that want to mirror jigane and will self slurry with ease.

This is them wet:

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And this is a abandoned quarry, deep in the heart of the Australian bush that he hikes to, to find them. I call it the 'Valley of Death Quarry'

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Thanks for the detailed response. You said they were soft, level 3 stones maybe? A friend of mine turned me on to a hardness equation that's pretty accurate.

You measure (in millimeters) the length, width, and thickness of the stone --- Multiply the LxW, then multiply the sum times the thickness of the stone. The number you're left with is divided by the weight of the stone in grams, and the number you're left with tells you how hard of a stone you have. You can also divide the weight by the sum you got from the thickness of the stone times the sum of length and width. mm3/g or the latter, g/mm3.

naturalwhetestones.com (scroll down to find an example of the equation so you can work it out for yourself)

Here's a chart to show what the numbers mean:

Jnat Hardness Scale_01.jpg

-gray.
 
Grayswandir said:
Thanks for the detailed response. You said they were soft, level 3 stones maybe? A friend of mine turned me on to a hardness equation that's pretty accurate.

You measure (in millimeters) the length, width, and thickness of the stone --- Multiply the LxW, then multiply the sum times the thickness of the stone. The number you're left with is divided by the weight of the stone in grams, and the number you're left with tells you how hard of a stone you have. You can also divide the weight by the sum you got from the thickness of the stone times the sum of length and width. mm3/g or the latter, g/mm3.

naturalwhetestones.com (scroll down to find an example of the equation so you can work it out for yourself)

Here's a chart to show what the numbers mean:

View attachment 179537
-gray.
Click to expand...


This is very interesting to see how they compare Specific Gravity to the Japanese 5 point hardness scale. Ta!

Obviously weight over volume is SG, just they're using mm3 here instead of cm3, so when you shift the decimal point three places to the right you get:

Above 2.80 = 5+
2.65 - 2.80 = 5
2.50 - 2.65 = 4.5
2.35 - 2.50 = 4
2.20 - 2.35 = 3.5
Below 2.20 = 3

---

One thing to bear in mind is that to use SG as a measure of hardness you have to be looking at exactly the same kinds of stones, with the same chemical compositions. You couldn't for example compare an Arkansas novaculite vs a Jnat (mostly mudstones and shales) vs a slate. A trans ark will come in as 4.5 on this scale but is going to be much harder than even the hardest jnats. While the majority of slates are going to be 5 or 5+, even if they're quite soft stones.

I've never actually measured the SG on any of my jnats I don't think. Would be interesting to see how they come out...
 
cotedupy said:
This is very interesting to see how they compare Specific Gravity to the Japanese 5 point hardness scale. Ta!

Obviously weight over volume is SG, just they're using mm3 here instead of cm3, so when you shift the decimal point three places to the right you get:

Above 2.80 = 5+
2.65 - 2.80 = 5
2.50 - 2.65 = 4.5
2.35 - 2.50 = 4
2.20 - 2.35 = 3.5
Below 2.20 = 3

---

One thing to bear in mind is that to use SG as a measure of hardness you have to be looking at exactly the same kinds of stones, with the same chemical compositions. You couldn't for example compare an Arkansas novaculite vs a Jnat (mostly mudstones and shales) vs a slate. A trans ark will come in as 4.5 on this scale but is going to be much harder than even the hardest jnats. While the majority of slates are going to be 5 or 5+, even if they're quite soft stones.

I've never actually measured the SG on any of my jnats I don't think. Would be interesting to see how they come out...
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I know that Suita stones will kind of skew the results because there's air in the stone due to the su. I think the most accurate test (I've been told) would be a water displacement test. I was under the assumption this test would work with any stone, regardless of composition, but I'm no scientist, that's for sure. So far the results have tracked well with the stones I own, but that's more anecdotal. I think the results would be off a bit (+ or - 5% maybe?) depending on the shape of the stone. A perfect rectangle would be optimal, koppa stones would be a little less accurate, and maybe a corner missing from a stone would also add a little inaccuracy as well, unless you could figure out the volume of the missing part of the stone.

You can divide the weight of the stone (in grams) by the volume sum and get something like this: .0026 g/mm3.
 
Grayswandir said:
I know that Suita stones will kind of skew the results because there's air in the stone due to the su. I think the most accurate test (I've been told) would be a water displacement test. I was under the assumption this test would work with any stone, regardless of composition, but I'm no scientist, that's for sure. So far the results have tracked well with the stones I own, but that's more anecdotal. I think the results would be off a bit (+ or - 5% maybe?) depending on the shape of the stone. A perfect rectangle would be optimal, koppa stones would be a little less accurate, and maybe a corner missing from a stone would also add a little inaccuracy as well, unless you could figure out the volume of the missing part of the stone.

You can divide the weight of the stone (in grams) by the volume sum and get something like this: .0026 g/mm3.
Click to expand...

Water displacement is the certainly the most accurate way to measure SG really. It’s also the simplest - all you need are the scales, a bit of thread/string, and a bowl with some water in it. No need to faff about measuring stuff with a ruler!

But yeah - you can't compare it across different types of stone. Soft slates or Thuris will have higher SG readings than trans arks or hard jnats. Coticules are higher still, even though they're quite soft as well, because garnet is heavier than silica. &c. &c.
 
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