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Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori

This text is full of so many gems:

If you try using a razor at a standing angle, the edge will very quickly start to show signs of damage, and an edge that should shave 200 faces or more will only shave around ten. So if you think you'd like to preserve your edges as long as possible, keep the blade as flat as you can when you shave.
 
Thanks for sharing this :)
 
It's an interesting read. There is a lot of information but more so useful to ones that own Japanese woodworking tools and sharpen them on a series of natural progressions, In saying that, my razor honing is similar. At times I use Japanese natural stones from start to finish including bevel set. Is it better? Imo no, it's somewhat slower, more costly but I do it out of enjoyment which is part of the hobby of collecting natural stones.

Just about every razor hone regardless of which mine/mountain is a from the Tomae strata. It is most common as there are 48 layers of Tomae. Tenjyou suita consists of only 4 layers which are at the very top of the mountains and are now very rare and super expensive due to their demand for wood workers, same thing with Shiro-suita and Hon-suita (8 layers) which are much deeper layers with similar characteristics, not often super fine as in a comfortable level of shave ready but very fine for tools and knives. The different stratas have formed from different substances giving different characteristics for different purposes. In other words there is always the right stone for the right tool for the right job.

Then you have the Mikawa mountain in Aichi where the shiro-naguras (or white naguras) come from which are formed from volcanic ash and again act completely differently but pair very well when used with a honyama stone from a Tomae layer which have a long history for their effectiveness with sword polishing. Like the ones @khun_diddy and @stillshunter have. You can consider it cheating in a way when they each one of them makes your stone act differently, it's like having 3 or 4 different stones in one :ROFLMAO::D
 
WOW - the stones are traced back to strata and individual mountains? I thought DE collectors were an obsessive lot but this takes it to a whole new level.

Impressive!
 
Mark1966 said:
WOW - the stones are traced back to strata and individual mountains? I thought DE collectors were an obsessive lot but this takes it to a whole new level.

Impressive!
Click to expand...

....oh great, I get the strong feeling my luck in finding straight razor and/or honing supplies in the wild within a 200km radius of Canberra just diminished to virtually zero...
 
stillshunter said:
....oh great, I get the strong feeling my luck in finding straight razor and/or honing supplies in the wild within a 200km radius of Canberra just diminished to virtually zero...
Click to expand...


No - you are safe!
 
Bear in mind that using compounds on a hanging strop will create a convex edge, which means after a few refreshes on a pasted hanger the very edge will not make contact with your finishing stone until you reset that bevel to remove the rounded or convex edge, you can see this on a microscope, in other words you will need to go lower than 8k to fix up the bevel before moving up. So I always recommend using pastes on a flat paddle strop or balsa wood which is very cost effective, more efficient and will prevent wasting of good steel in the long run :)
 
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