OHIRA

INTERPRETATION OF THE STONE

Another Ohira that is the type of stone I like to polish with, having a very smooth feel across the entire stone, a producing a dark grey to almost black slurry after a few strokes, with very a even clean and finish, perfect for further polishing techniques on the blade or the final finish.

A medium stone with very fine grain, good ease of use, this stone is well suited to both single and double bevel kitchen knife polishing. On soft cladding such as Damascus and folded wrought iron the stone gives a clear separation in the cladding layers and fine detail in standard carbon cladding like you may find on knives from Sakai. Tested on both single and double bevel knives, i really liked it for double bevel full blade polishing due to its smooth grain that allowed for easy consistent strokes.

Tested on Tamahagane Honyaki, Genkai white 1 Honyaki, standard soft sanmai white 1 from Sakai, nantetsu and Kato sanmai. The stone performed well across all steel, its fine grain clean smooth surface and cutting spread made it ideal for Honyaki and more difficult carbon cladding.

Best used with little water for both polishing and edge sharpening. I tend to start most of my stones with a surface texture from a worn 600 grit atoma. With little water a thick mud can be made, using more water in your slurry will make a darker mirror finish on the core steel, this stone gave a very clean clear contrast between soft iron and core steel with a very crisp cladding edge line.

Over all an excellent stone for both polishing and edge sharpening but I found it excels in polishing, best suited for those with some natural stone experience.