Wow. High to low slurry blending

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branwell

branwell

Straffanforge
KKF Supporting Member
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So in another thread I was replying to @KingShapton and it spurred an idea.

I normally do slurry blending using a lower grit base stone with a higher grit slurry, often an Aoto. What if one did the opposite?

So I took a Shapton Pro 5K which is a very hard high grit finisher and put some King 1.2K slurry on it and damn if that didn't produce an amazing feeling edge. Super keen and very aggressive. Haven't had a change to try it but will later tonight.

Yea. Yet another branch in the rabbit hole.

Definitely going to try lot of combinations later Am thinking 2K on the 5K could be fun.

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This reminds me of a natural stone I had which was generally on the fine side, but had random bits of coarser grit in it. The resulting edge was refined but with some aggressive bite
 
I have tried this in an extreme case, aizu slurry on a medium fine, a bit crunchy on its own suita. I think picking your low grit carefully could produce significantly different results.

I ended up with keen, extra toothy, but not very refined or consistent. As expected, not well polished, and some extra feedback going through more fibrous food.

Good when you have a lesser used, duller knife, but need to quickly put a good working edge on it to aggressively smash through a prep.
 
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So I tried the edge tonight. Its legitimately a great edge if you like very keen edges with tons of bite.

Wanting to experiment a bit so I tried some variations.

Tried the inverse, a King 1.2K edge stropped on the Shapton 5K and it was totally different. Still a very nice edge but not as amped up. The 1.2k slurry on the 5K was preferable.

Also tried Chosera 800 slurry on the Shapton 5K. Not as preferable as the King 1.2K. Felt a little tame by comparison.

Also tried King 1.2K slurry on the Morihei 4K and it was not as good as the same slurry on the Shapton 5K.

The conclusion I came to was the base stone matters and the donor stone for the slurry matters as well.

Definitely a whole world of experimentation available here.
 
branwell said:
Definitely a whole world of experimentation available here.
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And this world is exactly to my liking, thank you for this suggestion!

Another thought came to me from the results you described. The slurry from the King 1200 gave better results than the slurry from the Chosera 800. Could the difference be that the King is softer bound and also usually creates mud on its own? In comparison, the Chosera produces much less mud. If I'm right about that, then all three King stones (800/100/1200) should achieve good results as a slurry dispenser and possibly also the Suehiro Traditionalls (Akamonzen, Kouga, Rika etc.) as well as Cerax 700/1000 etc... And of course any other, softer bound stone that creates a easily mud.
 
Oh... (excluding cotis which don't really count) I've actually never tried a finer slurry on a coarser stone. I've always used coarser nagura on finer stones. I think that's how jnats normally work - with your final fine 'tomo nagura' often being made from the same stone, but the previous ones being coarser, softer stones (?)

I'll have to try using fine slurry on coarse stones too then!
 
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KingShapton said:
The slurry from the King 1200 gave better results than the slurry from the Chosera 800. Could the difference be that the King is softer bound and also usually creates mud on its own?
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Could be. Its enough fun that I plan to get out a ton of stones and try a lot of combos to see what works and what doesn't. Maybe some trends will emerge suggesting clay binders work better for this.

Another thing I like about this is it brings new life to stones I don't use much for whatever reason plus one feels like a mad scientist mixing up a little of this and a little of that. Although it could reach absurdity pretty quick, one could add multiple slurry's to dial things in in interesting way.

Heres a product idea. One could have a non abrasive base sharpening plate made out of something that was inherently interesting feeling. One could then purchase various different abrasives and modifiers, clays, ceramics, polishes where you could mix up a unique layer of mud to strop on. Would be a total mess but for those that like to play in the mud :)
 
branwell said:
Could be. Its enough fun that I plan to get out a ton of stones and try a lot of combos to see what works and what doesn't. Maybe some trends will emerge suggesting clay binders work better for this.

Another thing I like about this is it brings new life to stones I don't use much for whatever reason plus one feels like a mad scientist mixing up a little of this and a little of that. Although it could reach absurdity pretty quick, one could add multiple slurry's to dial things in in interesting way.

Heres a product idea. One could have a non abrasive base sharpening plate made out of something that was inherently interesting feeling. One could then purchase various different abrasives and modifiers, clays, ceramics, polishes where you could mix up a unique layer of mud to strop on. Would be a total mess but for those that like to play in the mud :)
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It just dawned on me we may be taking apples to oranges when discussing jnat slurry and synthetic slurry. I haven’t mixed the two, really haven’t touched synthetics except for coarse grinding these days. Jnat slurry is all sorts of mysterious, with undefined and variable fineness, grit shape, etc.

Hardness comes into play with jnats, unless you use a diamond plate to obtain slurry from a nagura.. I imagine even with my limited collection I could spend a lifetime with the combinations.

Ive never mentioned how much I enjoy these random, ultra specific edge formulations you come up with @branwell. I don’t personally have the skills to judge edges with the accuracy you do, but it brings me joy that someone consistently obsesses about the finest details of what you can do with your edges. Thank you sir!
 
Pie said:
ve never mentioned how much I enjoy these random, ultra specific edge formulations you come up with @branwell. I don’t personally have the skills to judge edges with the accuracy you do, but it brings me joy that someone consistently obsesses about the finest details of what you can do with your edges. Thank you sir!
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I seriously don't know if I have the skill either but I make knives and teach said craft so I'm pretty totally obsessed with it lol.

Think of it. Its such a simple thing an edge, but as far as we can tell, edges have been used as tools since before the human genome and we are still mucking about with them. Sort of the simplest thing, like a wheel, yet the impact its had over the eons. Just a little edge. Makes my head spin.
 
And in todays episode.

Shapton 5K base. King 800 slurry. Am thinking this might be a bridge too far. Keenness when down and increase in bite not worth it. Am theorizing the particle size of the 800 is holding the edge of the base stone too much.

King 6K Base. Shapton Kuromaku 1K slurry. Well fme. I'm just going to call this edge Freddy Kruger. You know that glisteny keenness where it instantly goes through your dermas but at the same time feels like a 1.5k ish edge. Yea, me either, but that's what this combo feels like. Might be a little too keen but I've definitely jotted this combo down for food testing later.
 
branwell said:
And in todays episode.

Shapton 5K base. King 800 slurry. Am thinking this might be a bridge too far. Keenness when down and increase in bite not worth it. Am theorizing the particle size of the 800 is holding the edge of the base stone too much.

King 6K Base. Shapton Kuromaku 1K slurry. Well fme. I'm just going to call this edge Freddy Kruger. You know that glisteny keenness where it instantly goes through your dermas but at the same time feels like a 1.5k ish edge. Yea, me either, but that's what this combo feels like. Might be a little too keen but I've definitely jotted this combo down for food testing later.
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I have done SP 1k slurry on my Naniwa SS 2k for years. At first unintentionally because I was just trying to keep the SS flat. But eventually I got to lazy to wash the mud off after flattening and I found that the combo was better than just doing the SS by itself.
 
branwell said:
And in todays episode.

Shapton 5K base. King 800 slurry. Am thinking this might be a bridge too far. Keenness when down and increase in bite not worth it. Am theorizing the particle size of the 800 is holding the edge of the base stone too much.

King 6K Base. Shapton Kuromaku 1K slurry. Well fme. I'm just going to call this edge Freddy Kruger. You know that glisteny keenness where it instantly goes through your dermas but at the same time feels like a 1.5k ish edge. Yea, me either, but that's what this combo feels like. Might be a little too keen but I've definitely jotted this combo down for food testing later.
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How about now mixing multiple grit slurries for a wider variation of particle sizes?
 
stringer said:
I have done SP 1k slurry on my Naniwa SS 2k for years. At first unintentionally because I was just trying to keep the SS flat. But eventually I got to lazy to wash the mud off after flattening and I found that the combo was better than just doing the SS by itself.
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Nice. Will def try grits that are close together. I imagine their interaction could make something perhaps quite different even though they are close.
 
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branwell said:
King 6K Base. Shapton Kuromaku 1K slurry. Well fme. I'm just going to call this edge Freddy Kruger. You know that glisteny keenness where it instantly goes through your dermas but at the same time feels like a 1.5k ish edge. Yea, me either, but that's what this combo feels like. Might be a little too keen but I've definitely jotted this combo down for food testing later.
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Maybe I'm judging a little too early, but that sounds like an impressive and brute champion 👍
 
KingShapton said:
Maybe I'm judging a little too early, but that sounds like an impressive and brute champion 👍
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You are way to early. When I should be at work, I am messing about in my sink hahaha

The combo I'm currently playing with is:

Morihei 4K with drum roll, Cerax 1K slurry.

This is stupidly good. Its got enough of the amazing Cerax feel to be totally addictive and its got a decent taste of 1K bite combined with the great Mori 4K edge.

I'm literally going to have to grab myself by the collar out of the house and go do something productive.

Will try the Cerax slurry on some other finishers more accessible in the 4K range later but the ability to cross pollinate in a way where you can get your favorate "feel" as well as edge in a finisher is just mind blowing to me.
 
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branwell said:
Makes me wonder what Cerax 1K combined with Ouka 3K slurry on the Mori or other hard finisher would be like. Looks like my evening activities are all layed out lol.
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Have you tried any of the synthetic blended grit stones, such as the Red Aoto from JNS or the Jinzo Aoto from JKI? I personally love the one I have from JNS and wonder how it might compare to your slurry/stone combo results.
 
tostadas said:
Have you tried any of the synthetic blended grit stones, such as the Red Aoto from JNS or the Jinzo Aoto from JKI? I personally love the one I have from JNS and wonder how it might compare to your slurry/stone combo results.
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I have a JNS red Aoto. I am pretty much the world's most impatient wannabe polisher. So I've used it like twice. But using it for a nagura on a harder stone might be kind of cool for edges. I'll try it with a couple of different stones and report back.
 
tostadas said:
Have you tried any of the synthetic blended grit stones, such as the Red Aoto from JNS or the Jinzo Aoto from JKI? I personally love the one I have from JNS and wonder how it might compare to your slurry/stone combo results.
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I haven't. The only synth Aoto I've tried is the Green Brick. Wasn't my fave to sharpen and I traded it. Am kind of wishing I had some of it now for slurry. It had an interesting abrasive mix in it.
 
In todays episode of "How many variations can you get out of your stones".

Last night I tried the following finishers as base stones.
King 6K & 8K, Arishiama 6K, Shapton Glass 6K, Mori 4K, Shapton Kuromaku 5K.

And I tried the following low grit stones as slurry donors. I harvested the slurry using a 140 grit diamond plate.

King 800, 1K, 1.2k. Cerax 1K, Nubatama Platinum 1.5K, Bestor 1.2K, Chosera 800, Shapton Kuromaku 1.5K and a few others I cant remember.

Some notes

Aggressiveness and Keenness
The character of the base stone and the slurry donor show up in the edge to varying degrees based on amount of slurry, wetness, pressure and technique.
Aggressiveness, keenness, it all shows up. If you are using an aggressive slurry donor, its aggressiveness shows up. If you are using a mellow donor, its mellowness shows up.

Feel.
A lot of the feel of the slurry donor stone shows up meaning if you have a mid grit stone you love the feel of, some of that feel will be present in the experience with the slurry blended finisher.

Finisher hardness.
The harder the finisher, the more aggressive the final edge for any given slurry donor.

Harder steels.
In another thread, hardness of steels and finishers becoming glassy was mentioned. This phenomenon is not very noticeable with low grit slurry on any of the finishers I tried.

Lower grits.
It really depends on the aggressiveness you are after but I liked the 1k and the 1.5k combos. 2ks worked as well but for me a little too high.

Favorites.
I really liked the Mori 4K as a base with Cerax 1K slurry on it. The Cerax is one of my favorite stones to sharpen on and that transferring and blending with the Mori's feel is just delicious. The resulting edge is verging on being too keen, i.e sticking into cutting boards too easily, but the aggressiveness the Cerax slurry leaves insures the cut has great feedback.

Not sure what more I can say about this so I probably wont given any more updates on this specific technique for a while but its definitely a lot of fun.

Oh, and for those who worry about contaminating your finishers with lower grit stones, this is a definite possibility but easily remedied with a 140 grit plate.

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It looks like you had a productive night after all, you've definitely been very busy. Great job 👍 .

I'm really excited about the idea and your results! I have a lot to try out in the near future. This whole idea is inspirational.

And if you discover new insights into this technique, bring it on, I think that would be very, very interesting for many here, myself included.
 
I have a piece of hornfells that is so fine, hard, and slow, that it makes a black Arkansas look fast. Building a very thin slurry with a Washita totally changes its character and lets it quickly deliver a great edge.
 
Any new insights into this subject in the last couple of years?
 
I often rub a coticule slurry stone on a BBW, started out of laziness instead of looking for the BBW slurry stone but then I really liked the edges. I'll definitely experiment more with mixing grits after reading all this, though my finest synth stone is a Chosera 3k.
 
I sprinkle fairy dust onto unicorn horn. Best edges ever.
Not to discourage the OP in theirs passion and experimentation but I think it’s mostly a placebo effect.
 
Ruso said:
I sprinkle fairy dust onto unicorn horn. Best edges ever.
Not to discourage the OP in theirs passion and experimentation but I think it’s mostly a placebo effect.
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I mean, there’s clear gain to be had from where I stand. High grit synthetic edges end up slick sometimes, and I really dislike that feeling. Adding back some aggression to a fine edge is both fun and useful in the kitchen in my opinion. Also, isn’t this the basis for ultra hard ozuku base stones and 3 grades of nagura for razor sharpening?

I don’t use synthetics for edges, but a very generous member once gifted me a bunch of jnat nagura and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t delighted by an akapin x nakayama base stone combo. Omura x coarse-ish suita also is a killer for general purpose gyuto.

Can you get similar results with a single stone? Yeah, most likely. But we’re not here to do things the easy way (mass buying/testing/selling thousands of dollars worth of natural stones).
 
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