By Nathan Lee - KIRU sharpening 11.7.2022
This is one of the finest stone I've used, it's a great stone in terms of fineness feel and pureness, it contains no inclusion at all, feels smooth and at the sweet spot of the fineness I want personally, however, being a Tomae, it's quite boring looking on the front side when it's dry.
Nonetheless, when this stone is wet, it has this gorgeous yellow colour I enjoy and the back side has breath-taking looking Kawa, which makes this stone a piece that will never leave my personal whetstone arsenal :-)
This is not a fast stone by any means, especially when I don't have the surface conditioned by say diamond plate 1200 grit, the stone does speed up a lot after resurfacing by diamond.
Stone pics
Close up details
Slurry pics
Finish
Sharpening feel
Very smooth sharpening feel, even more so than the Maruka I tried from my friend Ken's one, although the Maruka is stupid fine, it's slightly grippy on iron.
The stone also feels hard(duh, it's a stone...), and releases very minimal slurry, takes a while to cut, probably one of my slower stones.
Characteristic of the stone (on a scale of 5)
Hardness - 4.5
Fineness - 4.5
Speed - 3-3.5
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