Question on japanese chisels

[gregory young]

I just received a crazy gift from a client of 10 tasai polishing chisels. i guess i have a couple concerns as well. A third of the chisels are out of square ( up to a fat 1/32") and far from flat ( although not sure if just the working edge is supposed to be flat ?) and lastly is there a reason why after honing the bevel, it would loose the the distinctive profile where the two metals come together..
Thanks as im a bit green whe297615n it comes to the Japanese tools..

[David Weaver]

That is indeed one of the craziest gifts I've seen.

I don't know how flat tasais are, some makers leave a belly on their chisels (which you only flatten the first portion of the bottom) and some are flat (ouchis are flat, at least the older ones are). If they are push chisels, I would use them and gradually turn them back toward square with subsequent sharpenings.

You have a polished bevel because you're using synthetic stones, and synthetic stones cut a deep groove in everything they sharpen, making it look uniformly polished. A natural stone will cut the hard steel slowly leaving a polish, and more aggressively on the soft backing, leaving it dull looking.

Even (natural) oilstones will create a kasumi finish where the hard steel is polished and the iron is not.

I don't know how square tasais come when they're new, but some makers don't do a perfect job of squaring the bevel, so it's possible they may have been out of square to start.

[gregory young]

I appreciate your response David. Slowly squaring up overtime sounds like a good plan..having a decent idea on what she may have shelled out, has me a little suprised on the amount of work to dial in the backs and to have to square up.. And yes norton 1,4 and 8,ooo grit stones were used..good eye..was hoping there wouldnt be any reason to acquire new stones..

[David Weaver]

The need for any other stones is a mostly cosmetic thing, you can continue to use the stones you have with no problem and defer any thoughts about natural stones if needed. In my opinion, Japanese natural stones are awfully expensive for what you actually get right now and they are a minefield where you can end up spending money on collectible aspects that don't improve performance.

There are still some nice ones to be had if you know what you're looking for and emphasize the aspects that give you performance. That's something you can defer, though.

[gregory young]

I appreciate the response. i am happy with the results of my western chisels and irons, with the norton stones. i would however like to have these new japanese chisels show the the profile of the two metals. I do like to keep things simple and am not much of a researcher. Can i swap out one natural stone ? and mix in the nortons to maintain the kasumi finish ? or does it need to be natural from rough to finish if i was to dump one off the bench

[David Weaver]

You might be able to get a little bit of it just by slurrying the norton and leaving the slurry on, but it will be easy to get a very pretty finish with a natural stone.

You can get a kasumi finish from a slow chinese stone like this (which is inexpensive and best used following the norton 8000)

221548633817


These are slow cutting, and not that fine when slurried for tools, but they should leave an edge as good as the norton 8k. You would just use your normal routine and then run the chisel over this stone until you had the finish you want.

Or you can spend more and get a small to medium sized nice stone like a harder shinden, okudo or ohira suita.

http://yhst-27988581933240.stores.yahoo.net/shinden-yama-suita-natural-whetstone-13532g--2135322159.html

(no affiliation with anything that I've mentioned here)

I would avoid ebay for japanese natural stones right now. There are a lot of sellers on there selling really unremarkable stones for high prices, stones that are probably leftover stock.

The second store I listed is someone I am familiar with, Takeshi Aoki, and he's honest and fairly priced.

Japanese naturals aren't cheap. It's tough to get something good these days that has nice action for less than $150, and less than $250 for a larger stone. I would personally avoid most catalog sellers as far as natural stones go, because they are not experts on them and they often don't tell you what you're getting.

One thing is certain, though, you don't want any natural stone described as soft or medium. You want medium hard or harder. The soft stones are for knives.

[gregory young]

Thanks.i tried the 8000 leaving the slurry, but didn't help that much getting back the traditional look..I'll check out the second link..Im still confused on the two types of stones are soo different . and it seems like i may have to get at least 3 naturals (?) to be efficient..

[David Weaver]

I'd start with a finishing stone first, and if you don't like a finishing stone, you won't like the softer and coarser natural stones because they are a bit more difficult to use efficiently. The finishing stone will allow you to do your coarse and medium work with fast synthetic stones, but you'll still have the nice kasumi finish.

(I've not used a norton stone, there are some synthetics where you can get a bit of kasumi using a slurry, it's too bad that's not the case with the nortons).

At any rate, I wouldn't get too many stones at once, speaking from experience. It's very easy to end up with some mediocre expensive stones, especially now that any old stock stuff seems to be coming out of the woodwork, and knife and razor guys have their wallets open driving up price.

If you do get a natural, I've used (or rather have) stones from the following mines or regions:

Okudo
Tsushima (a medium stone)
Ozaki
Ozuku
Ohira
Shoubu
Narutaki
Tanba
Nakayama
Hiderayama

Without trying the stones, it's hard to know what you want, but something like the suita I linked is pretty safe because most of the medium hard suita have a smooth feel and easy action, but have the versatility to give a really keen edge. (Suita is a strata that has certain characteristics, and they can come from several mines)

Just keep in mind that price is often due to rare characteristics that don't necessarily mean anything in terms of performance. Something like a nakayama suita will be expensive, but it won't be better than shinden or okudo. A kiita (yellow) colored stone will be more expensive than an asagi (green) stone, but not necessarily because it's better, just because it's more rare.

Lastly, you never really know what you're getting with natural stones. I believe Takeshi Aoki's stones come from Imanishi, so they should be what they say they are. There are people stamping rare stamps on stones in japan, though, and if you notice looking around that there are a lot of stones with maruka stamps, some of them are fakes. It's hard for you or me to know what's fake and what's not.

[gregory young]

Thanks soo much for all the info..mucho..