Japanese Natural Finishers

[D_W]

I don't disagree with any of that, except I'm not sure that's the point Chris was making. I don't know what motivated him, if it's:
* people trying to get him to tout something they sell either now or in the past (i'm sure he was inundated with people doing that when he was editor of PWW)
* students constantly asking if they should switch this or that
* whatever else

I do have an interest in the stones, but not as a matter of sharpening for no reason, nor sharpening slowly or seeing anything that isn't there. I just like them, but I am always interested in sharpening well and faster (well meaning not compromising on control of geometry or ability to do the same thing every time).

The funny thing is that you're basically using George's routine because people badgered him for so long to tell them what he uses. After a long time of saying "who cares about sharpening? let's talk about something else", everyone finally pried out of him what he uses, and like everything else he does, he didn't just chance into what he likes.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

DW do you check the general section? There is request to identify some natural stones. Seems up your street

 

[D_W]

DW do you check the general section? There is request to identify some natural stones. Seems up your street

I went over there. Unfortunately, other than charnley, LI, welsh slate and tam o shanters, your stones in the UK are pretty hard to differentiate. I find the green/gray/black slates and novaculites pretty hard to tell apart in pictures.

 

[D_W]

As a follow up to this, my favorite stone out of the bunch so far (not pictured) was a stone that went under the radar for $32. I've gotten about 25 stones so far in this shift (most will be resold after I grade them for use, and for about or not much more than I paid), and a lot of them are in the $20-$75 range, and a lot are duds. Well, duds isn't fair. They will all finish something as a finish stone, but may not be good for what the sellers said they were good for (the most common of these is stones that don't stand up to tool pressure, or stones that were sold as razor finishers but just aren't that fine). None of the expensive ones are duds, but expensive doesn't mean a cheaper stone can't do the same thing if you get lucky.

The $32 stone, I thought was one that was missed on grading, but looked closer at it yesterday, and it is stamped - and not a new stamp (which means someone regarded it highly back when most stones weren't stamped and the seller didn't see the old faded stamp).

New stamps don't mean much these days, as I'm not aware of many that have any legal protection and the distributors of the stones have decided that it is now OK to stamp stones that were not originally stamped by the mines.

There is one good thing about the fake stamps, though - they bring down the price of the stones that have real ones.