Thread: Japanese Natural Waterstone (Oohira Suita) on eBay w/ lots of readings on the subject

Originally Posted by soatoz

Hi,

I've just listed another item on eBay, and if you are after good Japanese waterstone please check it out. This seem to be the only natural stone sold on Oz eBay...

Even if you aren't if you are interested in Japanese natural finishing stones, I wrote a lo---ng explanation about them. Some of the knowledge included could be the first time to be introduced in Oz. Lots of free knowledge!

So, if you are keen please have a look

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....9099&rd=1&rd=1

If it is knowledge - knowledge first time introduced in Oz, is it possible to share this knowledge on this Forum, is it reasonable to ask that we support this Australian Forum rather than something which is foreign owned?

Originally Posted by Sculptured Box

If it is knowledge - knowledge first time introduced in Oz, is it possible to share this knowledge on this Forum, is it reasonable to ask that we support this Australian Forum rather than something which is foreign owned?

Hi Tony,

I will post below what is in my eBay item description. It would be awkward to just omit parts that are related only to this item, so I'll include everything. I hope this is okay. If these are already well known amongst Oz woodworkers forgive me for saying this is the first time in Oz...

In any chance, if it was inappropriate to post something about my eBay items from the first place please tell me so, and I will refrain from doing so from now on

===

Japanese Natural Polishing Waterstone
"Oohira-yama, Suita, shiage-do"(Mt. Oohira, Suita Layer, polishing stone)
18.5cm x 6.5 x 2.5
The side is laquered to prevent chipping and cracking.

Hardness and Fineness is highly subjective to one's feeling, so it is difficult to measure, but I'll put what I felt as a guideline.

- Hardness: 8/10

6,7: suited for beginners, or someone who prefers softer stones. Some people say that softer stones are good for harder steel, and Japanese cooking knives. But personally I think this is totally up to the user's taste. The slurry (which act as a lubricant making the blade easier to slide accross the stone) comes out easily without any kind of dressing (such as Nagura stones *1) but will polish the blade to a mirror like finish, and create a cloudy look (called Kasumi), although the edge is very keen. This is because new particles keep emerging from the stone, the particles don't get ground into smaller size. Some people prefer this cloudy finish, because the mirror finish can be considered a bit vulgar from Japanese sense of beauty.
It needs more care to not to have it concaved or convexed, by flattening it by another stone or diamond sharpener.
*Nagura is a special stone used specifically for dressing the surface of the stone. Sword sharpeners use them to sharpen the sword, but apart from this exeption, they are used only for dressing.

8: for intermediate users: Not as difficult to use as 9,10 but it will give the blade a quite nice shine. Good for daily use even for the skilled sharpener.

9,10: only for master sharpeners, or someone curious enough to spend a lot to see what a hard stone is like. No slurry will come out. Must use a dressing stone otherwise it will scratch the bevel and you'd have to go back to medium grit stone and start all over. These aren't for daily use. You'd be sick of sharpening if you used these everytime you sharpened your blades. Hard stones are usually very fine in their grains. The particles that were drawn out initially by dressing, keep getting ground into even smaller size, thus at the end they are smaller and rounded than a polishing compound, giving a gentle polish to the blade thus creating a complete mirror (not mirror-like, but "mirror") finish. Even checked by x300 microscope, you'd still not see any serration on the blade. Completely straight edge. These are usually extremely expensive, but since they almost don't ware out at all, they will last for your lifetime for sure. You'd most likely be using only few millimeters at most, and passing it onto the next generation...

- Fineness: 8/10

Unless you are trying to enter the Kezurou-kai contest or something (there's this crazy contest in Japan where they compete to create a few-micron-thick shaves, that you can actually see through and read a newspaper!), any tool should be more than sharp enough using this stone. It would surpass any synthetic finishing stones, maybe exept for Shapton #15000 and up. Might be a little too fine and hard for daily use for most of the users, but if you like your tools to be very sharp even when you are rough planing or chiseling (which I do!) this should be your daily finishing stone. It is nice to sharpen your tools with finer stones even when you are using them rougly because the blade will last longer, and of course you need less effort to cut. You can see how I am reflected on the back of the blade polished by this stone. Almost like a mirror, ju~~~st slightly cloudy.

- Notes

This stone has a bit of "Su (holes that might scratch the blade, read below)" so you have to dig out if anything scratches the blade. At the moment I think nothing is scratching, but as you use it there might be some layers that needs a bit of care before you use it. I can see couple of layers with red lines. You need to chisel out the hard part with a nail or something, not difficult. If you are intending to use it with Sun-hachi (70mm) Japanese plane blade you'll have to pay attention not to hit those hard parts, but if you are sharpening chisels and small plane blades you should have no problem. The "Kiji" (the fineness) is quite fine and has good cutting strength. Should be a good stone to start out with. If you can mannage to use this stone, then you can use maybe 70% to 80% of Japanese natural stones.

===

Okay, now I should comment on the Mt. Oohira and the Suita layer a little for those who are interested.
Before that, I should explain how the natural stones are categorized in Japan. They are basically categorized by its origin --> the name of the mountain or the mine, plus the layer (if it's a finishing stone). There are a couple of exceptions but basically this is how they are categorized. Japanese call the stones by their name derived from their origin. Thus this stone is called "Oohira Suita".

- Mt. Oohira
Mt.Oohira is situated on the west side of Kyoto. Oohira is the name of the mountain and at the same time the name of the mine. Another famous stone, Mizukihara, is from the Mizukihara mine which is also in Mt.Oohira. Oohira mine and Mizukihara mine is opened at the different altitude, and the owner of the mining rights are different, thus they are regarded as different mines, thus different stones. Oohira's history goes back to pre 19th century, when they produced stones for polishing the swords.

- Suita
Suita's "Su" means nest (of a bee, beehive) and "Ita" (means board or layer). It is the name of one of the layers from each stone mines. Usually any mine will have this layer. The stones from this layer has this beehive like holes or flaws that were created by the gas being let through. These holes sometimes have hard particles that would scratch the blade, which needs to be dug out prior to using or avoided, but since the cutting strength of these stone are very high, it is favored by many woodworkers and carpenters who sharpen their tools everyday. Also the lighter colour of the Suita stones make it easier to see how much steel is being cut, because you can see the water getting black. This is quite important once you get used to natural stone sharpening. This is why lighter coloured stones are usually more expensive. It's not just the aesthetic value. Suita stones with light brown "burn (Yake)" has higher cutting strength, but watch out for red burns for they are sometimes too hard and will scratch.

Interesting read! Thanks for posting it, I wouldn't have read it otherwise as I don't do e-bay so don't normally bother following their links.

Originally Posted by soatoz

Hi Tony,

................. / In any chance, if it was inappropriate to post something about my eBay items from the first place please tell me so, and I will refrain from doing so from now on .............../

soatoz

Thank you, as to whether your initial post was inappropriate I cannot say, this question should be directed to the responsible Moderator.

For mine, as members of this Australian Forum our effort should be devoted to the doing whatever we can to support it.

Thank you for providing the information,

The Mods have looked at it. It's in the right forum, and openly declared interest (ie soatoz stated it is his ebay item), and isn't being pushed unreasonably, so I'm happy for it to remain.

I only have one "however"

However - the information above is only a portion of the very informative article included in the eBay description - any possibility of you reposting the info ? (in the right forum ), because I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be interested in reading what you have written!

Originally Posted by Sculptured Box

soatoz

Thank you, as to whether your initial post was inappropriate I cannot say, this question should be directed to the responsible Moderator.

For mine, as members of this Australian Forum our effort should be devoted to the doing whatever we can to support it.

Thank you for providing the information,

Hi Tony,

Yeah, moderator, tell me if it's better if I didn't do eBay ads here!
(I didn't know eBay was foreign operated. American? I didn't know Quicksilver was American owned company until recently either...
No wonder they're supporting Kelly Slater so much. Not that I have anything against American though, I grew up in California!)

And yeah, I understand your point. I'll try to post things that might be interesting to you guys when I have chance. I never thought that some people won't chase the link to eBay, that was quite new!

By the way Tony, I saw your bandsaw boxes. They are beautifully made, and very interesting. I've never seen such kind of work before.
Do you use any Japanese tools when you make them? If you do, are you a fan of Blue steel or White steel? Do you use any Japanese stones to sharpen your tools?

Talk to you again

Originally Posted by Stuart.

The Mods have looked at it. It's in the right forum, and openly declared interest (ie soatoz stated it is his ebay item), and isn't being pushed unreasonably, so I'm happy for it to remain.

I only have one "however"

However - the information above is only a portion of the very informative article included in the eBay description - any possibility of you reposting the info ? (in the right forum ), because I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be interested in reading what you have written!

Hi moderator!

I assume you read ALL my description in my eBay!? Wow, thanks a bunch for that! That took time to read all of them didn't it!? Did you read it because you are a moderator you kind of had to read it? Or was it out of your own curiosity??

Yeah sure, I'll try to post them, but I don't know which article should go to which at the moment, so it might take time to figure out. And about Ishido and Ichihiro,, it's quite sensitive stuff you know, so I might be a little quite for that if you don't mind. This forum is too big! To much attention for that kind of info... This forum is seriously huge, it's even kind of scary. I bet these threads are attracting more attention than my eBay items

I'm kind of starting to feel that I shouldn't do to much eBay ad here, but thanks for letting my eBay ad stay for this one.

You know it's great that this forum has this moderator system. In Japan basically there is no such kind of system regulating any forum. So you should be able to see how it's like. It's terrible. Everyone endingup cursing at each other. But it seems thanks to all of you moderators and the faithful members trying to keep this place sensible, this forum seems quite free from such kind of problem.

Well, thanks to all of you.

I'll try to post something interesting soon.

Good night!

Originally Posted by Stuart.

the information above is only a portion of the very informative article included in the eBay description - any possibility of you reposting the info ? (in the right forum ), because I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be interested in reading what you have written!

Hi Stuart.

One more thing.

The part where I went, in "- Others" section, "If you need, I can get you a high quality Japanese synthetic stones,,," is this acceptable to be posted here?

Until I open a web site (maybe a little shop? I am not sure yet.) I'm basically planning to sell my stuffs through eBay, so it will partially be an ad for my eBay items. Sorry to bother you, but could you give me an advice on how much I should cut out from that article and where to post it? As you can see I'm a rookey here so don't now the way around!!

Thanks!

Hi.

You can put the information about the Japanese tools in the hand tools section. Here.

Al

Originally Posted by soatoz

Hi Stuart.

One more thing.

The part where I went, in "- Others" section, "If you need, I can get you a high quality Japanese synthetic stones,,," is this acceptable to be posted here?

Until I open a web site (maybe a little shop? I am not sure yet.) I'm basically planning to sell my stuffs through eBay, so it will partially be an ad for my eBay items. Sorry to bother you, but could you give me an advice on how much I should cut out from that article and where to post it? As you can see I'm a rookey here so don't now the way around!!

Thanks!

Hi Soatoz,

I read your waterstone 'book' on ebay, because it come through to me via one of my permanent ebay searches. I found it to be very interesting, and thank you.

You could always give the forum 'Buy and Sell' area, if you are willing to set a fixed price. If the price is competitive, then some of the members could well be interested.

Originally Posted by chrisb691

Hi Soatoz,

I read your waterstone 'book' on ebay, because it come through to me via one of my permanent ebay searches. I found it to be very interesting, and thank you.

You could always give the forum 'Buy and Sell' area, if you are willing to set a fixed price. If the price is competitive, then some of the members could well be interested.

Hi Chris(I suppose?),

I'm glad that you enjoyed the 'book'! You might have already read it by I posted a "Guideline on getting good Japanese tools" on Buy & Sell area, so have a look if you are interested.

Yeah, I would list my items here if that's not a problem, but there'd be quite a number of items so at the moment I'm thinking it would be too much. But if there is a request from enough numbers of the forum members, I would be more than happy to list them here, especially for the expensive tools.

I'll put up another post explaining what I have to offer. (Basically what I wrote in the eBay description.)

Thanks for you comment and advice!