An acquaintence of mine has some J-Nats...what are they?

[Octaveman]

Tunrs out an acquaintence has done some serious woodworking before and had some J-nats for his chisels. He asked me if I would know anything about them and of course I said no but I could find out. So, if anyone can give me some idea of what they are it would be greatly appreciated since he can't recall much about them and I told him I'd ask everyone here. Thanks.


http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone4a.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone4b.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone2a.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone2b.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone2c.jpg

[Octaveman]

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone1a.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone1b.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone3a.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/stone3b.jpg

[Octaveman]

I played with them a little bit tonight and from what I can tell the stones are shown from the finest down to the coursest. Granted, this is my first exposure to natural stones so my opinioin could vary from reality just slightly. The first stone was most definitely the finest of the four with the second stone shown was a close 2nd. Matter of fact, there wasn't a whole lot of difference in finish left on my low-end Kamagata Usuba I used to test them.

The finish left on the lower part of the blade was from the first stone above and what I would call the finest. The stone had a great feel to it and left a nice haze finish but did not shine up the carbon steel portion below the iron.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/knifeb.jpg


This part of the knife is the finish left by the coursest (last) stone above. It most definitely left errant scratches in the finish as shown toward the top.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/octaveman/knifea.jpg

[Octaveman]

Nothing?

[thombrogan]

I'm impressed by the stones, their finish, and your ability with a camera, but I'm clueless about all natural stones and 90-100% of synthetic ones.

[black.echo]

The first stone is cut and sized like many a Nakayama, 10k+ grit. From the lack of polish, it would be a softer one if that's what it is. The second one looks a lot like it's from the Tomae stratum, maybe Hakka or Narutaki, 6k-8k nominal grit. The other ones are mysteries to me.

[ksskss]

Hard to say definitively. The first stone does look a bit like a Nakayama, possibly a Nasiji or Iromono, but there are other stones that look similar for example an Izari or even some Yaginoshima. As black echo mentions the mud seems a bit thicker than the typically hard Nakayama stones.

The other stones don't look like suita layer stones. I don't believe the clay 'King' colored stone is a Hakka although it is similar in appearance. This should be a fairly muddy polisher if it is.

The last stone that is scratchy may in fact be a particularly fine grit but very hard stone. Some of these very hard stones may benefit from use with a tomonagura or slurry stone cut from the main stone, yielding a more even finish. These very hard stones require more skill to extract their full potential and are often used more for razors than knives.

Natural stones tend to not leave a bright shiny finish like you might expect from synthetics, leaving a scratchier softer finish on the soft steel or ji(gane) and a dark hazy mirror finish on the harder or Ha(gane) steel.

Hope that helps a bit.



---
Ken

[Octaveman]

Thanks for the replies. So, given a hazier finish they could still be pretty high grit? By "King" stone you mean the red boxed one with the writing?

[ksskss]

The two pics below the pic that says high class have a look like a Hakka Tomae. I'd post a Hakka pic, but ...

And yes you can get a hazy finish that is a very high grit finish. Some finishes look like an antique mirror with a black haze in the mirror, referred to a Kurobakari (wrong spelling?), - kuro referencing black.

---
Ken