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 waterstone to buy (hahahahaha)!

I know that this stuff has almost no appeal for most, but this is what goes through my mind as I work. I have a huge backlog of stuff that I want to get down, but the polish (huhh?)....let's set a low bar. I have been working a TON on kanna tuning and sooo much of that stuff comes down to sharpening skills. AND I am looking for domestic sharpening stones comparable to the Japanese naturals....VERY interesting stuff, lots of comparison, benchmarking, trying to document in the offhand chance that someone else will find this helpful. There is a lot of prep writing to put this stuff into context....this stuff. AND I am using a tablet for typing/camera combined and it is....difficult.


Which stone to use? Ahhh, more fun here. I grew up thinking that the epitome of building something well was that it be indistinguishable from a factory produced item. Everything perfectly even, consistent, straight, flat......mechanical, homogeneous, monotonous and sterile. Japan is a very industrialized, modern society, yet many of their tools are still hand made in small batches by blacksmiths working in ways indistinguishable from their 18th century ancestors. Only the VERY cheapest chisels and wood planes are factory manufactured. Those are often the ones that get exported, too, because that is what we, over here, like and buy. Different strokes....

These tools are made for professionals and the assumption is that a pro knows how to get his tools to work, wants things a certain way, and is going to do a bit of customizing. Pretty much the exact opposite of how things are here. We want "work out of then
 box", "needs no adjustment", "no tools required", "no sharpening, batteries, skills....etc". So.....when you buy a Japanese tool, even the really expensive ones, they need work to even get them to be usable, much less work well. And they are all different. Each one will probably be a bit different in steel hardness, edge holding ability, balance and ease of sharpening (harder doesn't necessarily mean sharper or longer edge life, BTW). So if you find this sort of thing interesting, welcome! If, not..........well, you wouldn't still be reading, then, would you?

So....each tool is different and reacts in a different way to the sharpening stone. I am a hack. Want to learn from someone who REALLY knows his rocks?

http://kiyond.blogspot.com

This is where I am on most days. Tanaka Kiyoto is a Japanese luthier who uses only hand tools in his craft. I figure that he knows more than most when it comes to getting tools sharp. He has TONS of Utube videos, too.

Sometimes I just turn on autoplay and have his stuff on in the background. Only in Japanese, though. And almost all of his stones are naturals. I am finally getting to the point where I can get something out of watching someone else work. First, we need to put in some time on the rocks.

Natural or man-made? I have both, but use the naturals more often. I use the artificials for sharpening old tools for the first time, because they usually need a lot of work to set the bevels or work out nicks and I save the naturals for the good stuff. Final honing and touch ups, stuff like that. I also find them more interesting and fun  to look at.

You quickly find that each one of these stones has an individual character, even the artificial ones. Hard, soft, muddy, glassy, sticky, rubbery....so many descriptors. Even different stones of the same grit, series and manufacturer will be different, depending on where they sit in the kiln during firing. Man-made stones get sorted and graded, just like the naturals. Different guys sorting on different days can come to very different conclusions.

One thing that I have come across on a couple of occasions is the general rule "Hard blade, soft stone. Soft blade, hard stone." In my search for information regarding kanna tuning and blade sharpening, I went back and read through all of the old archived HMS Japanese tool forum postings.

Japanesetools.com

The forum died off about 2006, but the older stuff from 2002-3 has some very valuble information from some of the Japanese tool using holdouts from the first time Japanese tools were cool, back in the 80's-90's. Look for postings by daiku05353 and Jim_Blauvelt. These guys have been using Japanese tools professionally for like 20 years and have lots of insight. Not so much info for the first time user, though. The student must be ready for the teacher. I can't find as active AND knowledgeable user group today. Too often you will find People, well......like me! And I am no pro! Exact opposite, rather. I like to think of myself as an enthusiastic learner.

Interestingly, the "Hard blade" mantra was mentioned by Tanaka Kiyoto in a writing that he was studying that was written back in the....I don't remember, but OLD, like 1700's. Perhaps the origin of the saying?

Batteries are dying on the computer. Maybe I'll sharpen something.

Au naturel - Ink stone (not) mystery stone

Another Ebay mystery. I took a gamble and bought this stone from an Asian antiquities seller. He listed it as an ink stone, but without a well to hold ink......hmmm. The pictures showed what looked like tiny spots or holes, like you see with a suita stones, and it also had some prominent streaks of renge (red pattern). Looks like a sharpening stone to me. Luckily, it works like one too.....

Size 150-100-20 mm, olive green, evergreen, red and white. Slightly translucent!

This is the face that I use. All sides are finished, so no skin.

The spot is a low point. I REALLY didn't want to surface this thing down. It's HARD!

Uses basically no water

SUPER hard! This stone is really beautiful, lots of color and looks 3D. When I received it, it was all polished up with wax, I think. It looks like a gemstone, like a low grade jade or marble. Jadeite? Jasper? Funny to think of me sharpening old rusty tools with a semi-precious gemstone, haha. I tried it out, and the tools had a bad tendency to dig in and gouge and it felt very "grabby" or sticky. The tool would skate, then grab and gouge. Ha! Street fighter stone!

I lapped it with great difficulty using a 1200 DMT diamond stone. It forms a milky white, very thin slurry. Once it was flattened, it worked well. Needs a nagura! Expert stone, way above my pay grade. I'm still learning.

Shall we?

DMT 1200 slurry, sometimes gray, other times white.

T= 1 minute ( after jyunsyou). See the reflection in the steel?

Nice bright mirror!

Forms a creamy slurry, dries slowly and gives a crazy deep finish that just improves the longer that you use it. Surprisingly fast considering how hard it is. I have no idea what this stone is, but it acts like something special. From the photos of the 100's of other stones that I have looked at, it looks a bit like an ozuku asagi, but it is pretty well impossible to tell, especially from photos. I can't speak for everyone, but my photos suck. Ozuku is a mine in japan, asagi is just the color green, I think. It doesn't matter, but I am curious. I would buy another, but I am pretty sure that I couldn't afford it. Definitely a razor stone.

I haven't done it yet, but one of these days, I am going to do isolation tests to more accurately gauge the grit of each of my stones, as a reference piece. It is actually completely irrelevant, but when I started buying stones, I pent a lot of time looking for this type of information. I am currently working my way through Tanaka Kiyoto's  blog. He is a Japanese luthier and writes at great length about tools and sharpening stones. Oh yeah, and crafting guitars. He seems like a REALLY cool guy. I also really wish that I could read kanji. As it is, with Google translate I am only getting about 20% of the content and there is a lot to learn, if you know what to look for. I strive to learn enough to ask the right questions.


---Addendum---
Speaking of asking questions, I am still trying to figure out what this stone is. There are some ink stones without wells, I have found.

So there ya' go.