Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Ah, the sharpening. Here's where you can discuss sharpening stones and media, along with sharpening techniques.
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Brian
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Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Wed Nov 25, 2015 11:13 am

I've been making some headway on a natural stones progression. My goal, to get normal wear out of the steel by way of natural stones, then progressing, rapidly back up to a good polish.

My reasoning behind doing this with natural stones is so that I can avoid the soaking and constantly flattening my synthetics. I dont mind using them for grinding a bevel or something of that sort, but for everyday use I find them to be tedious. Natural stones are, for the most part, splash and go. Being how they are they make for easy use.

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Diamond plates on the left, top row (green, red, white, tan) are snythetics. The natural stones are as follows;

Top left tooth-pasty green stone is an Ikarashi. This stone is a good cutter, but I found it not great for tools. It's absolutely wonderful for knives and probably just as good for swords. So a good stone to have for kiridashi and sushi knives, or anything with a hamaguri edge.

The dark grey stone is a Tsushima, this is the lowest stone I've been using in the progression for resharpening.

The yellow stone is a Shinden Suita, with Renge characteristics.

The medium grey stone is a Nakayama Asagi. I've prattled on about both of those previously I'm sure

I'm doing this freehand, for resharpening an established bevel, freehand is great.

Tsushima finish
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I put a microbevel on my blades most of the time. Not a big one, but one that can be removed everytime I sharpen with the Tsushima. The Tsushima removes wear and microbevel quite rapidly. I'm using an Atoma 400 plate as a tomo nagura.

This finish is applied by the Shinden suita, all Tsushima scratches are removed. The renge characteristics of the stone leave minor hairlines in the Ji but help to work the Ha quite quickly.

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Final polish with the Nakayama and minor microbevel reapplied.

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The Nakayama Asagi will show minor hairlines in the Ji, same reason...it's a fast cutter, and makes the Ha nearly mirror polished. I'm not surprised that these were guarded by the state for military purpose for so many years.

Hope you guys enjoy.
durbien
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Re: Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:56 pm

Are microbevels common practice? I haven't seen them discussed for Japanese tools, but as a novice that's not surprising.
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Brian
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Re: Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Wed Nov 25, 2015 7:32 pm

I am not sure if they are common practice. Not big bevels, a few swipes at just a hair more angle on the finish stone. Keep it small and kill it off every time you sharpen.
durbien
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Re: Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Thu Nov 26, 2015 7:00 am

Brian wrote:I am not sure if they are common practice. Not big bevels, a few swipes at just a hair more angle on the finish stone. Keep it small and kill it off every time you sharpen.
So if you're removing/reforming it every time you sharpen, its purpose is to strengthen the edge against chipping?

Getting back to your setup, what role does the surface plate have? Before switching to waterstones, I did a lot of sandpaper sharpening on mine. Now that I don't do that so much anymore (and have Atomas for stone flattening) I'm wondering if I can use it to do the initial flattening of blade backs. My first teacher used a steel plate and carborundum powder for this task, but I must admit to not exactly understanding what was going on (isn't the powder also attacking the plate?). I recently purchased some diamond lapping film and thought about attaching it to the granite as I had done the sandpaper earlier. Have you had any experience with this material for blade flattening?
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Brian
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Re: Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Thu Nov 26, 2015 10:01 am

It strengthens the edge, and also ensures that the edge does not have any scratches from previous stones.

I use the surface plate for Kanna dai only, it's pretty useless otherwise since I no longer use it for sharpening. It does make a nice surface for supporting the stones though.
Gadge
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Re: Natural Stones Progression (with pics)

Thu Nov 26, 2015 5:23 pm

durbien wrote:My first teacher used a steel plate and carborundum powder for this task, but I must admit to not exactly understanding what was going on (isn't the powder also attacking the plate?).
I started using this method of flattening the backs of kanna blades after reading Odate's book and have used it ever since for initial flattening. From my experience the steel plates tend to gall as you suggest. The best quality are cast iron which don't seem to be attached by the carborundum as much. I use a small cast iron surface plate which I sacrificed to this purpose. After around 20 years it's still quite flat.

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