ATAGO

INTERPRETATION OF THE STONE

This Atago was a unique stones, producing a fine mud easily with good cutting and polishing power. 

At first giving a thick Kasumi finish, but after working the slurry the core steel starts to clear up quickly giving a very nice contrast with fine detail starting to appear in soft iron cladding, like that used in Sakai by Tanaka. 

There’s a bit of texture felt under the blade from the stones natural pattern but due to the ultra smooth feeling of the stone the texture makes no impact on sharpening feel and feedback. 

Best started with a 600 atoma surface texture washing of any mud from the atoma. Using a little water the stone starts quickly with a fine mud. A easy, versatile stone to, that can be used both for single and double bevel polishing as well as edge sharpening. 

Getting up into the 8k range the edge from this stone was very fine with good tooth working well with Yanagiba for Sashimi when used with little slurry and more water, or with mud the edge becomes a bit more aggressive with a lot more tooth, a great edge for daily use. 

Tested on single and double bevel carbon steel knives with soft cladding as well as Honyaki and wrought iron clad knives. All performed well but I really liked the fine details brought out by this stone in the soft cladding.