New Jnat

Well I took a gamble a little while ago from a 330mate Nakayama on eBay. I knew the risks and am not sure what I got. Here are some pics:



I lapped it and chamfered the upper left corner a bit where you see the slight indentation. This stone was a PITA to lap - by far the hardest stone I've ever tried to lap. Spent an hour on 220 grit (and several sheets) before working my way up to 2000.

I am a bit worried about the vein inclusion you can see. When wet my finger glides over it, but am worried none the less. Am going to take a non valuable razor to it sometime here in the next couple of days to hopefully see if the inclusion is not a problem. Hopefully it is like my coti with the magnesium vein that doesn't affect honing.

Here are some pics after lapping and wet:



Wish me luck!

Harvitz81 said:

Well I took a gamble a little while ago from a 330mate Nakayama on eBay.

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I'd be willing to bet that you will - at the very least - have a stone that you can shave off of. Probably more.

That reddish color looks interesting. Good luck.

Woodash said:

I'd be willing to bet that you will - at the very least - have a stone that you can shave off of. Probably more.

That reddish color looks interesting. Good luck.

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Yeah, the only thing that worries me is that inclusion. If it is fine to hone over then I'll be happy with my purchase ($60 shipped from japan) regardless of where it fits in my progression.

I don't know much about JNats, but I can't imagine it not being a decent finisher due to hard hard this stone is.

My next one I'll probably purchase from a more reputable dealer, just wanted to test the waters with this one (yes I suffer from HAD).

What did you get, the sword/knife size random stone? Looks a LOT nicer than the razor size I got. Good luck with the testing.

Harvitz81 said:

Yeah, the only thing that worries me is that inclusion. If it is fine to hone over then I'll be happy with my purchase ($60 shipped from japan) regardless of where it fits in my progression.

I don't know much about JNats, but I can't imagine it not being a decent finisher due to hard hard this stone is.

My next one I'll probably purchase from a more reputable dealer, just wanted to test the waters with this one (yes I suffer from HAD).

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Hope the stone works for you.
How do you determine hardness?

That looks very interesting Joe. Do you know if it's a Kiita or Asagi or...? That straight line crack/fracture is something to watch out for (so I've been told)...don't treat it harshly (drop or extreme temperatures)...If so, it will break off. It should give you a nice edge though.

Good luck ...looks good and I've be very anxious to hear about your experience(s) with it.

mainaman said:

Hope the stone works for you.
How do you determine hardness?

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I'm just basing that on how hard the damn thing was to lap. Like I mentioned it took me an hour on 220 grits sandpaper to get it all flat. Reminded me of lapping a hard arkansas.

SliceOfLife said:

What did you get, the sword/knife size random stone? Looks a LOT nicer than the razor size I got. Good luck with the testing.

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I bought one of his JAPANESE whetstone 70+old NAKAYAMA plane sword razor stones. Can't link his auctions as they are not bins, but I opted for the more expensive (has a $60ish starting bid) one. I was the only one that bid and based on his selling history that is usually the case.

BladeRunner001 said:

That looks very interesting Joe. Do you know if it's a Kiita or Asagi or...? That straight line crack/fracture is something to watch out for (so I've been told)...don't treat it harshly (drop or extreme temperatures)...If so, it will break off. It should give you a nice edge though.

Good luck ...looks good and I've be very anxious to hear about your experience(s) with it.

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Absolutely no idea and being a 330mate stone, god knows what it is. It is fairly green in color if that means anything.

Like I mentioned before, I'm new to all this JNat stuff. Actually would have bought one of those Takeshi Aoki stones that was linked awhile back had it not came up days after I ordered this one.

Harvitz81 said:

Absolutely no idea and being a 330mate stone, god knows what it is. It is fairly green in color if that means anything.

Like I mentioned before, I'm new to all this JNat stuff. Actually would have bought one of those Takeshi Aoki stones that was linked awhile back had it not came up days after I ordered this one.

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My 330mate looks to be the ~same size as yours and is distinctly mottled yellow and gray (it's shown in strong sunlight). Yours looks similar (but that red stuff really looks interesting....). And yes, I think that if you spend the dough for one of his mid-range or better stones, you'll likely do OK.

Mine, for reference:

Harvitz81 said:

I'm just basing that on how hard the damn thing was to lap. Like I mentioned it took me an hour on 220 grits sandpaper to get it all flat. Reminded me of lapping a hard arkansas.

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this is not an indication of hardness, a better sign would be how much water it absorbs.

mainaman said:

this is not an indication of hardness, a better sign would be how much water it absorbs.

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I see, so how does this relate. Absorbs a loft of water - not so hard and vise versa?

Harvitz81 said:

I see, so how does this relate. Absorbs a loft of water - not so hard and vise versa?

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The idea is "less absorption, the denser the stone". The assumption is that density is directly related to hardness.

danjared said:

The idea is "less absorption, the denser the stone". The assumption is that density is directly related to hardness.

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exactly

Well I had a chance to use my new stone for this evenings shave. I took a razor that I honed up to a coticule finish that I'd been shaving on for a couple days.

I raised a slurry with my DMT 1200 and proceeded to do light x-strokes until I ended up with a mud (ala JimR's method I believe). The vein inclusion proved to not be a problem and the razor just glided right over it.

I must say after rinsing and linen and stropping I looked at the bevel with the microscope and must say that it didn't look as polished as the coticule edge before.

Regardless, I proceeded to shave and could immediately notice a difference. The razor was most certainly sharper while actually maintaining that coticule smoothness I'm used to. Normally when I go to an escher after the coti I get the sharpness increase, but lose some of the smoothness.

All in all, after 1 test I'm extremely happy with the results. I just hope this doesn't further fuel my HAD (As if it isn't bad enough as it....). Going to have to try some other methods with the stone to really get to know it.

Thanks all you enablers on the board that continually discuss all these awesome new stones

I love my Nakayama. But I find using it to be more of a pain in the you know what in terms of the time it takes than a simple dilucot. So I don't use it too often. (And yes, it's pedigreed with pedigreed tomonagura and all the Asano-stamped nagura, including a koma, to go with it. It's a ~8"x3" Maruka.) But no, I'm not selling!

danjared said:

I love my Nakayama. But I find using it to be more of a pain in the you know what in terms of the time it takes than a simple dilucot. So I don't use it too often. (And yes, it's pedigreed with pedigreed tomonagura and all the Asano-stamped nagura, including a koma, to go with it. It's a ~8"x3" Maruka.) But no, I'm not selling!

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Yeah, I only plan on using mine as a finisher. The dilucot method takes me only about 10-15 minutes after bevel setting so I don't want to really mess with all the nagura.

For finishing though I probably only spent a couple minutes after the coti and I'm perfectly fine using it as such.