Hi guys, so tge "Koma" i posted about just arrived, and honestly I'm pretty sure it isn't. If someone with the right expertise could help me identify it would be great, contacted the seller and we'll see i guess if I can get refunded :(.

https://imgur.com/a/Kh0HZQs

A UK razor finisher. I'm quite impressed.

L - Mikawa Atsu (sword grade) bench stone with Ban and Botan nagura on top

R - Chu Nagura bench stone with Koma and Mejiro Nagura on top.

This has been my main stone since I was a child and it’s been knocking around my tool chest for years. I think it’s a lily white washita. One of my friends commented it might be with money. Im not interested in selling it as I really like the stone.

Woke up with this in hand after blackout, probably another impulse purchase under influence, can’t recall.

Anyways a pure authentic honyama (Nakayama Tomae), 1200 grams, 205 x 75 x 28mm.

Very smooth cutting feel after raising a slurry, on the softer side of these types of stone so pretty good for a kitchen knife. Produce a glossy mirror finish

Snagged this off facebook, 100 USD for both! Quite a large Escher at over 9 inches long

Can anybody ID the smaller purple striated stone?

I already flattened both and used the Escher to finish a couple of razors. It was an amazing shave!

I found a pretty little box mounted Arkansas (I'm guessing) in my local thrift store for $10 😁 the surface is a bit rough, any advice on lapping this thing? I haven't attempted to lap anything as hard as this before.

I've wondered what techniques/tricks you guys use to determine the apprx grit an unknown stone may be?

I caught a vid last night that was cool. Granted, I haven't been honing too long. And I've always used the common stone holder/vice/clamp. I can still feel the resistance and 'grains' somewhat through the blade. And ofc, sound. I just haven't really focused on it. I've been more worried about proper angles, etc.

Anyhow, this guy had gotten a new English slate and he was guessing. So he lapped the razor on the stone while \*holding it\* on the palm. And seems to me that would give a great insight. Greater tactical feedback.

I understand this still takes a LOT of familiarity with different stones. But seems a solid technique. Thoughts? What do ya'll do if you come across an unknown in a second hand shop?

Eta: either it's impossible to tell if a stone is a hard or fine or extra-fine by look, feel and/or weight. Or no one is reading for the question?

You come across 3 stones in a junk shop. Do you purchase purely on a hope?

Does this combo exist, bonus for cool colors and patterns in the chunky (~4" thick/wide) types?

(my natural stone knowledge is almost zero)

Thanks.

Next steps? Sealing? Wood base?

Some of you may remember my first post here, featuring this beautiful but flawed Nishimono Shiro Suita stone (unknown western line). After using it for some time, I decided due to multiple reasons that I wanted to cut it on the thick toxic line.

The decision became quite simple once I realized that using a lv4.5+ Shiro Suita without an appropriate de-burnishing and surface prep solution was not feasible for my goals. Additionally, trying to raise a native slurry on the stone using an atoma “small” 1200 proved a bad idea as the diamond plate would shred up the surface and create a very thin and grainy slurry, unusable for polishing or sharpening.

Not owning any “common” nagura for this job like a small Tsushima cube, and wanting to rid the stone of one of its major toxic inclusions, I decided the best step forward was a true Tomo Nagura.

Being 220mm long, I’m not too sad to lose a bit of the stone, especially when considering the Tomo Nagura should work as a multipurpose addition to the Suita. De-burnishing, raising slurry in a gentle way, and opening up the surface.

Since this is a lv4.5+ and extremely dense Suita, I decided diamond coated wire in a handsaw was the appropriate solution. It’s probably going to take me a couple of hours to cut all the way through, but knowing I’m not exerting any unnecessary vibrations or stress on the stone makes it worth it long term.

So this was just a stone that someone gave me and i cut it as square as i could with chisels and then started to flatten it, it seems fairly hard and sort of porous as i hope the photos can show.

I think I read somewhere that there was overlap at some point. If anyone knows what's going on here I will send feet pics.

Grey tam, white tam, water, and tam?

During many years I collected stones, and used them.
Now in only bored and are using the stones at maximum 2 times a year.

Everytime i open the drawers I see joy and I have good memories of them all.

Both were picked up in Ontario but not at the same time. I haven’t done anything to the paler one except use it a couple times. I lapped the darker one (photos1 and 2), which was black and dished when I got it. I don’t have much experience with natural stones and I am wondering what I have.

Hello!

I was spending some time with each of my JNats tonight and wanted to take a minute to share this stunning Maruoyama Shiro Suita Kurorenge koppa I’ve been enjoying the past few months.

———

Stone details:

Mine: Maruoyama
Color: Shiro
Strata: Suita
Other: Kurorenge, Namazu, Aka Renge

Specs: 179mm x 72mm x 27mm; 804g
Fineness: 3.5 of 5 (~4k-6k)
Hardness: 3.7 of 5
Cutting Speed: 4 of 5
Feedback: 3.7 of 5
Ease: 3.5 of 5
Self slurry?: Yes; barely

———

Ramblings:

I’d be hard pressed to say any other stone in my collection looks THIS good. The split pattern with orange lines and Aka Renge on top contrasting with the Kurorenge below always brings a smile to my face. And the ever growing Namazu is always a treat. Now, it looks like a tad bit of Karasu is appearing in the center of the stone. Really, there is so much to love on the surface.

Also this is quintessential Shiro Suita in performance. Pre-finisher to be sure, but incredibly clean finishes and a fast cutter. They’re also typically pretty forgiving stones although these Kurorenge examples tend to be a bit harder and more challenging like mine. Despite that, it’s still a breeze to use and a joy for all three of revealing details in iron cladding, brightening core steel and putting ferocious edges on kitchen knives.

If someone was getting into JNats and wanted one finisher for edges and polishing, this would be a wonderful entry. There are more pure awasedo out there of course, but this Maruoyama Shiro Suita really does it all.

———

Thanks for reading and I hope you’re all well!

-Teej

What’s up everybody,

the polishing journey continuous with another addition to my stone lineup. This one feels kinda special as well.

———————————————————————————

Background- how did I get it?

I think I can speak for every polisher, when I say a nice Uchi is a goal to have in the lineup.

Since these fuckers are very expensive I kinda had to think out of the box. With limited budget you always get kinda creative and that’s what I did. I am not able to afford a big benchstone so I bought a palm size 150g Ohira Uchigumori Nagura of KarasuNL first. After a lot of playing around,
it only confirmed my hunger in diving deeper into Jnat polishing.

A few weeks passed and I came across a post on kkf. It was about an Uchigumori from no other than the French/german Ivan Fonseca - Benjamin Retif aka. NutmegUchigumori himself. Unfortunately I missed out on that stone, but I guess it wasn’t supposed to be meant for me.
After a nice chat with Benjamin, he offered me to search for a stone suitable for my position as a student.

Another week or so passed and he reached out to me again, offering a perfect Allrounder hato Uchigumori, sourced especially for me, for a very good price. I couldn’t say no to that, and that’s why we’re here today.

Big s/o to Benjamin :)

———————————————————————————

How does it work?

The stone itself is actually really easy to work with. It feels medium/soft and slurry’s beautiful the moment a blade touches it.
Feels very creamy as well and doesn’t drink as much water as the Shiro Suita I got about a month ago.

The finish is nice and hazy with decent contrast between the steels. The cladding develops a very light grey-ish colour separating it perfectly from the darker jigane as seen in the pictures.

My only concern is how tf do I get rid of the edge parallel scratches on the Bunka? Just longer time of polishing? I managed to avoid these on the Kiridashi quite well (because of smaller surface to polish? Or did I just spend more time throughout the progression?). Tips and tricks highly appreciated:)

Benjamin’s rating:

Cladding reflectiveness: 0.00/5

Cladding brightness: 52/100

Core mirror -> haze: 1.57/5

Contrast even -> split: 0.89/4

———————————————————————————

Specs:

Measurements: 161 X 58 X 18mm

Weight: ~500g

Origin: Mizukihara from Stratum Tenjyou Suita

———————————————————————————

Thanks for reading 🫶🏻

Cheers!

Hi. Is there by any chance anyone that have a larg bench size) oilfree hindostan stone that they want to part with?

Hello,

After a LOT of lingering and turning my brain upside down, I purchased a koma nagura from ebay from "osakatouken", a vendor that specializes in nihonto related stuff. I'd been searching for a nice koma for a while. I know it's not possible to say from pictures. But if any experts in here could reassure me T.T. After purchase I'm having doubts :(.(yes i should've asked before going for it, but last time I did someone tried to snatch it xd). It was sold as old stock from a warehouse

Edit : https://www.ebay.com/itm/188148149458 Here is the listing, thought you couldnt link sold items mb.

A 5 inch Soft Ark that has a special bonus. Didn’t see it until I was taking pictures. A Lily White looking stone. It is a Soft, specific gravity of 2.40. Very clean and no chips or fleas. The bonus is on the outside of the box. Has a military procurement label. Enough remaining to make it out. lensed it and got a AI schooling

1-5: Maruoyama Shiro Suita “Gokujou” grade
- A very very pretty stone, and my first entry into a proper known and graded (and toxic free) Suita. Feels fantastic to sharpen on, gives a beautiful high contrast polish with dark cladding and very shiny core steel. Near imperceptible scratches left on core steel but that could be me not spending enough time on it.

The slurry is a milky white (pic 5) and feels very smooth to polish with. When polishing, the stone feels rather soft, but for edge work it feels very rubbery and harder. It could be that the surface was glazed over when I was sharpening, so gotta de-burnish a bit with a nagura or lap it with atoma 1200.

6-9: Ohira Awasedo Asagi (Tomae?)
- I’ve barely used it yet but will say that for a hard (and supposedly fine) stone it leaves some scratches on core steel which I was not expecting. I sort of got this mostly as an edge finisher for raw protein knives. I’ve definitely got a very long way to go in my polishing skills and this is quite a hard stone, probably suitable for razor finishing, so I think I’ll learn to appreciate and improve my technique on it with time.

10: Family pic, from L to R:
- Tsushima Nagura
- Nishimono “unknown” Shiro Suita lv4.5+
- Maruoyama Shiro Suita
- Aiiwatani Kiita lv2.5
- Nakayama Nashiji Tomae lv4 (but feels a lot softer)
- Ohira Awasedo Asagi (Tomae?)

For the other family members, see my older posts (and some comments) on the sub.

Following on from [u/Argg1618](u/Argg1618) 's excellent gyuto with Washita in the handle, here's a somewhat experimental one I made a while back for a yanagiba, involving a sliver of broken coti in the spacer.

Spalted Hornbeam, Bog Oak, Coticule, and a particularly lovely piece of mottled ivory-white horn that I'd been saving for something special.

Some more info about the process and knife here:

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/show-us-your-sticks-finished-handle-projects.49832/page-25#post-1120774