Hi everyone, first post here.
My journey into natural stones, Jnats specifically, began earlier this year in February, and in this short time I've added 3 stones to the lineup. I've written a little on my thoughts for each stone so far.
- Tsushima Nagura (~5000-8000)
- Nakayama Nashiji Tomae (Lv 4/5) 206x78x34mm
- Nishiyama Shiro Suita (Lv 4.5/5) 220x79x40mm
Tsushima Nagura (medium)
My first stone, works amazingly well for transitioning from synthetic to natural scratch patterns for wide bevel polishing, and also gives my carbon steel knives a very toothy edge, incredibly pleased for having paid only €80 for it. I only use the stone with slurry (made with an aroma 400), which is very readily forthcoming and makes for a comfortable, though sticky polishing & sharpening feel.
It produces a really nice Kasumi on iron-cladding, and a more splotchy Kasumi on stainless cladding (depending on steel grade), and brightens the core steel to a (very) foggy mirror.
Nakayama Nashiji Tomae
My second stone, with its role to continue the polishing progression post-Tsushima, and leave a scratch-free kasumi and very bright polished core steel. I have a long ways to go to master this stone, and I definitely think I've only discovered about 30% of what it can do. very much looking forward to learning more about it. I've used it so far only with a medium slurry, and the polishing feel is very comfortable, not as sticky as the Tsushima, but much thirstier, so a couple drops of water are added frequently.
The stone doesn't self-slurry very easily, and requires quite a bit of pressure to start releasing anything with the knife, but Atoma makes short work of raising a slurry. The lacquer coating it came with on the sides is very flaky and is coming off already, so I'm thinking to seal it myself in the coming weeks. I'd leave it raw, but the stone does have a crack down the middle (height wise), so best to avoid a tragedy and up with 2 uneven 15mm thick stones. Got this one for around €300.
The Nishiyama Shiro Suita
The newest addition, only got it in today, and immediately fell in love with how it looks. Gorgeous stone with some unfortunate flaws. The stone has multiple toxic inclusions, the "clumpy" one is pictured, and the toxic line is towards the top of the stone (visible as a slightly reflective, dug-out line in the family picture and also the thick black line next to it). I don't know much about this stone (or mine) and couldn't find anything online. The seller mentioned that these are practically no longer on the market. Only thing I was able to gather is that "Nishiyama" could either refer to a stone mining area in Yamagata Prefecture, a bit north of Fukushima, or it could refer to a general collection of "western" mines in Kyoto. Though given it has a 'Shiro Suita' designation, I'm guessing it's coming from Kyoto. If anyone knows more about this beautiful rock, please do tell. Any suggestions for how to get the toxic inclusion out? Since the stone requires diamond lapping to get a slurry going, I'd like to make sure I don't introduce any of the harder (toxic) minerals into the slurry.
After having used it for both Kireha polishing and Koba sharpening, the results are fantastic! As expected for a lv 4.5 stone, it doesn't self slurry at all so it needs the atoma with quite a bit of pressure to get just a bit of mud. It cuts very quickly and leaves a very dark completely scratch-free kasumi, and a very hazy mirror core. The edges it produces with a bit of slurry may be the most aggressive yet refined I've ever achieved so far. The knife feels like it pulls itself into produce effortlessly. Couldn't be happier with the stone, but do need to figure out something about those inclusions since they somewhat prevent usage.