JAPANESE KITA YELLOW SLURRY STONE NAGURA RAZOR HONE

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Kita Nagura 10 I am cleaning out my closet and I had a broken yellow tennin toishi stone. I cut this kita stone up into small to medium size nagura, suitable to build a fine slurry paste on your sharpening stone. The paste from a high grade tennin toishi will lubricate while you polish. The paste will enhance the quality of your stone. Please note the sizes listed, the pictures are not to scale. I cut up some very high quality yellow stone pieces into small to medium size nagura. It weighs 26 grams and measures 35 X 23 X 11 mm at triangle legs (25.4mm = 1"). See pictures for its profile. It is sold by weight. I will combine shipping, please ask. If you have any questions I will be glad to try and answer. Thank you for looking and good luck bidding. Natural Japanese Stones The Japanese sword sharpeners believe a blade and stone must be a perfect a match. Finding the ideal pairing is not such an easy task. Despite the excellent performance of synthetic stones, many experienced sharpeners still prefer natural stones for sharpening their finest blades. Japanese Tennen Toishi are particularly renowned for their ability to harmoniously sharpen hand-forged carbon steels. They can bring out a blade’s full potential and allow the sharpening process itself to become a pleasant ritual. The finest stones from the Honyama quarries around mount Atago in the Kyoto area are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Natural Japanese stones may only be used with water and should not be stored in water like some synthetic stones. These are natural stones and may have slight natural imperfections and may vary somewhat in size. Since they are natural sendimentary rock, and are formed by a process of Volcanic activity at the bottom of the sea which incubated Radiolarians. Radiolarians produce intricate mineral skeletons and with clay would drift and settle on the bottom of the sea with silica shale and whatever else was in the water. The larger and heavier particles would settle closer to the source. The lighter and finer particles drifted further and formed the very fine highly abrasive stones, what now is concidered the best stones found in the Yamashiro Umegahata Region of Kyoto,ie Narutakimukiuda, Nakayama, Shoubudani, Okudo, Ohzuku, and all of the most famous mines thoughout history. The heavy and metalic particles settled to the bottom and formed the skin. This process took tens of thousands of years. Since whatever was in the sea at the time settled with this mix, the stones formed with different formulations of matrix stone mixed in. When the matrix composition is harder than the stone it scratches the steel, it is called toxic and cannot be used for sharpening. Matrix that is softer than the stone can be used for sharpening and actually adds character to the stone. You will find that different parts of the stone can work steel differently. Through use and learning the stone you find what might be concidered a sweet spot. By tradition there are different paterns used to describe the stones ie karasu, lotus, nashiji, etc. Also the hardness is usally related to the depth the stone is aquired in the mine. As a general rule the deeper a stone is found, the harder it will be and vice versa a surface stone will be softer like akapin. With anything formed by mother nature there are always exceptions. I have written this hopefully to give a very brief overview of Tennen Toishi. I have been searching for a difinitive history of these stones for years and it seems to be a very illusive search. There is no grading standard, the miners graded their own stones by their own individual standards. There are 7 stratums that these stones are born, which in themselves have different properties. Throughout history the Shogun always controlled the mining and distribution of these stone. I think that knowledge of these stones was protected as a military secret. I do know, there would have never been samurai without nature creating these wondrous stones and man discovering that they can be a work of ... read more

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