Toishi envy....

The pile of kanna parts and pieces was really getting in the way, time to finish up some more tool rehab and rehabilitation...

Wow! Seeing these in a pile makes me think.... I don't know what it makes me think.... I DO need to make a tool rack, that's for sure! The tool R&R was mostly just blade repair, dai adjustment and fitting, correcting warpage. The usual round of tasks that are required for most of my Ebay purchases. These were all beaters.....clean and functional now.

Speaking of Ebay....I have heard that most of the Japanese tools are overpriced, non-functional items that no one in Japan wants. The good stuff stays in country and is bought and sold elsewhere, cause it ain't on "the bay". Where is it? The good stuff?

It's at Yahoo auctions, Japan. I am SO envious! REALLY good stuff (like I've NEVER seen on Ebay!) and about 1/3 the U.S. prices..... It looks like most sellers won't ship international.....*sigh*... speaking of envy...



Tanaka Kiyoto, my Toishi hero, has been trying out some newly mined stones.

From the blog "Perspective of guitar production house", craftsman Tanaka Kiyoto.

Nao natural whetstone is operated by a really great sounding guy who is bringing some REALLY nice stones to public attention. He is digging them from the parent stone, cutting them to size, testing (using some very impressive kanna blades!) the performance on a variety of tools, and writing about his findings. Reading his blog and follower comments makes me realize how little I know about Toishi and how they are properly used. It IS good to know that other people have the same affliction, of wanting to sharpen things just for the pleasure of sharpening. I need to learn if there is an actual word or phase for this.... maybe there is a support group?

What Nao natural whetstone has is native rock...... nice stuff. What I've got..... Remember the picture at the top? The white thing in the background... that was either a doorstop or a piece of rubble from the old stairway to our house, I can't remember which. I tripped over it for about the 100th time, then thought "What the heck....".

Crunchy quartz

Smooth quartz

"Use what ya brung". I know. Too hard. Doesn't release grit. Too scratchy.... Yep, all of the above. I'm starting to feel as though my day isn't complete without firing up the diamond wheel grinder. I cut and smoothed 2 sides to 1200 grit, just to see if there was any difference in the grain orientation. If that was, it was not too significant.

This was about 30 seconds work, beginning with a diamond nagura slurry. It did something..

Much better. This was 15 second, maybe, using the ODC nagura. 2000 grit or so.

This thing actually worked to a degree. I will use it a bit more to see how much of the abrasive action was due to the surface profile left by the diamond plate and how much was the actual stone itself. It seems to be a somewhat slower mid-range stone, around 2000 grit, but with a very consistent and shallow scratch pattern. The finish is more akin to a sandpaper finish, rather harsh and reflective, but also easily erased by a higher grit stone. The ODC nagura helped the stone produce a nice creamy slurry that cushioned the feel considerably and made for a tolerably smooth feel. I was quite surprised, so much so that I had to double/triple check, then compared the resulting finish to......

My green "Ink" stone. It took about 30 seconds to erase the quartz scratches. Hazy mirror.

Ozuku asagi, 30 seconds more and full mirror on steel.

This was totally for fun, I was expecting NO success at all. What I found was a pretty big surprise. Not world class, by any means, but.... interesting. I tried: straight water (slow, a bit rubbery, some "grabbing the earth/stiction"), diamond nagura (smoother, much faster), ODC #3 (coarse crunchy grit, thicker creamy slurry, fastest), diamond again, water again, ODC#1 (smooth nagura, thinner slurry, better feedback, slurry degraded too fast).

Then: "Ink" stone, Ozuku, quartz w/ODC#1.... Ozuku, quartz W/ODC#3, Ozuku finish.

Back and forth quite a few times, but the scratches are really easy to erase. The stone may have "mellowed" in use, we'll see. Very hard. Rather slow. Might be good for flattening ura's?

Interesting yard rock. Not anything like Nao natural whetstones, though. His Wakasa waterstones make my heart go all a'flutter. Check out his blog to see some of the shavings he pulls.... beautiful smoky mirror finishes, WAY cool ren-tetsu iron kanna blades..... My eyes are green....

The best of both worlds- Comparing american and Japanese sharpening stones

OK, I'm done playing with these Arkansas's, time to put them to work. I will also evaluate where they fit in the whole grit hierarchy. I've got more blades to sharpen!

Here's a new one for you. Boiler Bay sandstone, from one of the sites where I did field work and pretended to study intertidal marine invertebrates and algae. Too much fun to call it work. Anyways, I had been using this for rough work on axes and garden tools and it worked great, but the hardness was too variable. It is mostly soft, but harder in some spots, so it tends to wear very unevenly. Most of this stuff is too soft to be practical, but some harder deposits survive the coastal surf..... this piece was flattened to provide a working face.

Medium grit Aoto waterstones are cut so that the working surface is  perpendicular to the primary cleavage plane or layers of deposition, so I took another sample and cut it thus. It seemed to be the right thing to do because the stone works WAY better. The stone composition is more consistent now and even though the stone FEELS really soft, it is surprisingly resistant to dishing. This thing is actually usable, coarse, but somewhat comparable to my "real" Japanese aoto and is a fast cutter. It's got a few scratchy bits that I may try to track down, but it's not a big deal because the scratches are so shallow, they sharpen out quickly.

Easy and fun to use, too soft for small blades but works fine on big chisels and plane blades. Very thirsty and hard to keep wet. Around 600-800 grit? This is the coarsest stone that I have. This Umehiro chisel is pretty hard, but no trouble for this stone.

Soft Arkansas? and diamond nagura.

Mystery slate, no nagura.

Surgical black Arkansas, ODC slurry.

A nice dull mirror finish using the ODC.

I went through the grits pretty fast, not being too fussy. There are still more tools that need sharpening......

Boy, this plain carbon steel is easy. This is from the mystery brown stone.

Bright mirror from the surgical black.

Smoky mirror from the Ozuku asagi. The Sblack made the edge shiny, but the Ozuku made it fine and even.

I really wanted to see how these stones worked on the soft wrought iron used on the plane blades...

This was using the coarse side of the mystery brown stone.

And finished on the top, diamond nagura.

Tools are sharp, for now....

Now how do these stones compare with what I've got, grit-wise? VERY general, just impressions of overall finish and swap-ability. The waterstones are universally faster, but softer and require more maintenance. WAY more expensive (synthetic waterstones aren't TOO expensive, but are such a messy PITA that I only use them on occasion)

Japanese aoto, soft Arkansas?, medium Arkansas?

Mystery slate, mystery brown stone, jyunsyouhonyama.

Inky the mysterious Chinese inkstone/waterstone, surgical black Arkansas.

I'm still looking for an equivalent to the Ozuku asagi. I have been really pleased with this stone, I just wish that it was bigger.

This stuff is soooo fun!

Natural Novaculite - Arkansas sharpening stones continued

So for starters, this is of course VERY subjective what I am trying to convey is my general impressions of the"feel"and efficacy of these rocks when used with water as the sharpening fluid. Why water?

I have used thin oil (baby oil) in the past, and while it worked very well for smoothing the action and flushing the old swarf away, the smell is unbearable. I find perfumy smells completely repulsive, but thankfully you can buy unscented baby oil in most towns, just not here. I used mineral oil thinned with unscented (haha!) mineral spirits. It works just fine and also seems to prolong the life of the sandpaper that I was using, much better than water. Interesting... Is the oil actually lubricating the abrasive grains and reducing the amount of shear forces being applied, reducing fracture? Is the water having a mild solvative effect on the abrasive itself or perhaps the reducing the adhesive bond? It FEELS like the oil had a greater cushioning effect, even when thinned to water consistency. I don't know if one works better than the other.

What I DO know is that oil is messy. VERY messy and and somehow spreads black nastiness everywhere. I also have a peculiar autonomic response that is triggered every time that I get my hands dirty, which makes my nose or eye itch. I've heard that others experience this odd phenomena. I guess that I am just not neat enough. At least oily tools don't rust as fast. That said, after I sharpen a tool I wipe it OFF using an old towel and then typically wipe ON a light oil. Talk about two faced. It is CLEAN oil, I suppose.

Mystery brown, soft Ark?, surgical black, medium Ark?, slate.

Also, as I may have mentioned, I found these stones to be more effective after creating a VERY thin slurry using a diamond stone. With no slurry they felt pretty lifeless, like not much work was being accomplished. So if you assume slurry, I'll spare the "before" photos.

Here is the medium Arkansas? with an example of a thin slurry. This was enough to completely change the feel of the stone.

Soft Arkansas? I liked this one. Tolerably fast, good feedback and left a finish comparable to a 800-1000 grit waterstone. 

I also tried using the side face of this stone to set the bevel on this old 1940's Japanese kitchen knife. My wife's grandfather brought it back after being stationed in Japan after WW2. It is laminated construction just like the chisel, with a very soft backing iron that tended to load up and clog the stone but was easily cleaned using soap and more water. It WAS quite a bit faster cutting than the top face, but slightly coarser, maybe 600 grit. Also interesting is that out of all of these stones, only the slate brought out the contrast between the hard steel and soft iron. The Arkies made the lamination line less distinct.

Medium Arkansas? A fair bit harder, slightly finer finish (1200'ish) but feedback was vague and the cutting action was pretty slow.

This mystery stone is a light/dark, mottled brown, possibly a hard Arkansas? So hard that neither Brandon nor I had the patience to do a first-class job of lapping it flat. It was probably a fair bit lighter in color before decades of oil and steel residue soaked in and turned it dark, and is not quite translucent. The grain structure seems more fine then the Novaculite. It is very dense and fine on the top face, kind of glassy feeling but polished nicely to around 3000 grit or higher. The side face was much faster and had better feedback, but again was more coarse at about 2000 grit.

This is a little slip of slate or very fine shale. VERY fine with faint sedimentary layers, this guy produced a finish of approximately 8000, and if continued, up to about 10000 as the slurry broke down. Speaking of slurry, this stone made its own, a very creamy viscous light gray and the stone was pretty hard for slate. A beautiful polisher, I would love a piece of this in a larger size. Brandon will keep this one for carving tools (smart man).

Surgical black Arkansas (with an Umehiro chisel) and lots of ODC slurry.

Different chisel, different slurry (diamond, I think)

This is a big, beautiful, surgical black Arkansas stone from Hall's sharpening stones. I was REALLY curious to find out what kind of edge I could get with this guy. VERY hard and glassy. Using water and no slurry, this stone had just a hint of feedback to tell you that it was doing something and gave a very polished edge, but felt more like burnishing than actual cutting. No depth to the look of the steel.

This stone has been used and lapped with diamond stones, but even so, STILL has the factory lapping/scratch marks visible! REALLY hard! Fortunately it is pretty flat and should stay that way, oh, pretty much forever. Do not let one of these get dished out!

 Using a diamond stone to raise a slurry was a lot of work and the slurry did   improve the feedback a bit, but as the slurry degraded, that was it. No new slurry was produced, the stone is THAT hard. It does cut though, just very slowly. I tried making slurry with a few different types of stone: bare (poor), diamond  (this would be surgical black slurry, fair), soft Arkansas (good, but didn't last long enough), mystery brown (fair), slate (good for polishing), and ODC (volcanic tuff, good).

The best slurry was made using the ODC nagura and used in the classical straight razor fashion. Make up a fair bit and just keep at it, allowing the slurry to degrade and dilute until you are finishing on just the bare stone itself. VERY polished edge! This would be a good stone for razors and, like a true razor hone, you would just need a variety of slurry stones to get the type of edge that you want. I found it too slow for tools, with one exception. It is GREAT for lapping backs of chisels and plane irons. Because it is SO hard, you can apply all of the force that you want, with no fear of dishing out gouging the stone.

If you just want sharp tools without spending much money, you can't beat old oilstones. An old soft Arkansas (or an India stone synthetic), a hard Arkansas, and a piece of very fine slate would be perfect for classic carbon steels. Some say that once treated with oil, they are ruined for water use forever. That  MAY be true to a degree, but is mostly a load of crap. They still do work. They work well enough for me, anyways. Old, used ones are ridiculously cheap because they are not currently "cool". What you get is sharp tools forever and a stone/tool that will last for GENERATIONS! There is NO higher ROI (return on investment) than that of sharpening stones.

Fancy, new steels need more extreme measures, but I don't need that stuff. It WILL get dull sooner or later, and then you need to sharpen. Have fun with that!  Learning to sharpen, REALLY sharpen, had been the MOST valuable skill that I have learned. I can't emphasis this enough, it has been a game changer. I wish that I had learned sooner, like 30 years ago. Back then I just wanted to build things, not spend a bunch of time polishing edges. I mean, if it cuts wood, it's sharp enough, right?

I feel like I've been sitting in a dark room and have just figured out that there is a light switch. What will I see when the light comes on?

And now for something COMPLETELY different.... Novaculite sharpening stones

My daughter Eliana was helping me the other day by peeling the a bark off of some branches that we dragged out of the back forty (we have decided to make a "real" cat tree). She decided that this would be a good opportunity to use some of the SHARP tools. Only 8 years of age and already a tool snob, I love it!

Bevel down, cut away from the body, smart girl.

Maybe I'll try the spokeshave....

Yeah, this works.

Well, you know what that means.....

More tools to sharpen, yay!

It just so happens that my friend Brandon, knowing well of my sharpening stone obsession, had dug out some of his old oilstones for me to play with.

Brandon on his sailboat.

Arkies, Indies and Blacks, oh my!

My oilstone experience is limited to say the least, extending to India (synthetic) and probably hard Arkansas (natural) stones, so this was a real treat. Brandon knew that I would be trying them out as waterstones, so he even had them all washed up and lapped for me, aawwww. I grabbed a handful and ran for the door/hatch/ companionway.

Strange days, snow and ice on the Oregon coast (also lots of glare, contributing to particularly bad photos).

From left (these are guesses): hard Arkansas, soft Arkansas, surgical black Arkansas (certain!), medium Arkansas, and some type of slate (very fine).

One thing I noticed right away. One of MY mystery stones (the small one) bears more than a passing resemblance here. Look, I learned something already!

I also learned something else. These stones work well using a thin oil, but if you lap them fine and try to use them with water.....

Not much happening.... more burnishing than cutting.

Make a thin diamond slurry....

That's more like it. Lots of swarf.

It's pretty neat. Just water, and the stone feels like it's rubbing or dragging but not working too well. Make a very thin slurry, just 2 or 3 seconds work, and it acts as if it's a completely different stone. Suddenly there is some feedback and the slurry turns black with metal particles. Kind of like a waterstone...... but slower. The good part is that they are harder than most waterstones, so you don't have to be QUITE as diligent about flattening. Oh yeah, MUCH cheaper than natural waterstones, too.

But wait! There's more......

honegrown- Geological Specimen Supply (GSS) - Altamira shale

Paraphrased from GSS....

Altamira shale, lower member, Palos Verdes Hills, Los Angeles Co. CA

Middle Miocene shale, oldest of 3 sub-units of the Monterey Shale, contains volcanic ash (and possibly formed with silica in solution). Very pretty stone, it shows a slightly crystalline composition and looks somewhat similar to some (too)hard Montana shale that I have tried.

Starting from where we left off with the welded volcanic tuff, this picture shows the results of 1 minutes work....nothing. No black particulate, no slurry, edge may be burnishing slightly, but not enough to note. Very hard, moderately sticky, feedback not too good.

This is after a rinse and using a DMT Xfine P2400 diamond plate to raise a very thin slurry, then working the edge for 1 minute. A little black, no additional slurry generation, very slight polishing. This is looking like another garden stone, I guess. Not too much action, feedback was improved by the diamond slurry. Only slightly sticky now.

Rinse, ODC nagura, 1 more minute. Creamy slurry formed and darkened immediately, edge is polished, steel is bright mirror, iron is dark mirror, even haze.

Iron is reflective too, maybe around JIS 8000?

Check out the trees!

ODC made the difference. So now I am thinking that the ODC is responsible for ALL of the different behaviors shown by the various stones. It turned this one from a sticky, pretty, dud to a respectable performer. Not stellar, but fair/good. Feedback was very nice AFTER the ODC nagura. I am thinking that this stone is too hard and new particles aren't being released fast enough to really work the metal in a timely fashion.....come to think of it, it feels like an oilstone! Like a hard Arkansas/Novaculite.

I'm still trying to figure out this stone. I will revisit this one soon.

RIVETING, ISN'T IT?