YAGINOSHIMA

INTERPRETATION OF THE STONE

A very even and smooth stone when sharpening with very good cutting speed, easily erasing scratches from 1500-3k NSK Kogyo's diamond stones.

When worked thoroughly the mud from the stone can create a bright steel with a very nice Kasumi on the soft cladding. A harder stone that I found works well with very little water to start a mud from the soft iron or starting a mud with nagura or a surface texture from a 400-600 atoma.

Tested on Tanaka blue 1-2, white 1-2, single and double bevel, Ikeda and Genkai Honyaki, wrought iron and watetsu. Due to its hardness, medium hard+ working on Honyaki was a bit difficult without a mud but on soft cladding the stone performed beautifully creating a dark smooth mud that made the stone easy to polish on.

I found this stone to be best suited for softer cladding steel, soft iron as well as single bevel knives like Yanagiba. Due to its very fast cutting speed edge work was excellent, creating an exceptionally sharp edge well suited for sashimi bocho.