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Is japanese natural awasedo grit really friable?

Alacrity59

Wanting for wisdom
Ok guys. We are getting reports from some of you about this thread. I'd say now is the time to dial it all back a couple of notches. Folk are being offended a bit. Back to the facts.
 

Alacrity59

Wanting for wisdom
Look guys. I was following this earlier. When I say stick to the facts I mean not taking pot shots at each other with dictionary definitions and trying to one up the other guy at his expense. Sorry to the people quoting the dictionary . . . I know these are facts too. . . Fair enough.

Still . . . dial it back.
 
Someone posted something ... going to paraphrase here, along the lines of you have to do in order to learn. I accept that there are artists and craftsmen (Japan is an excellent example) where only by spending years doing can they ever really call themselves accomplished. Certainly the classic Apprentice > Journeyman > Master succession is proof that this works historically. A hoddie (hod tender, mason laborer) probably learns very little about finishing stone or laying a course of building blocks by building scaffolds or cleaning up; yet it's difficult to dispute that the process of working one's way from being an apprentice to a journeyman to a laborer does work.

In my own life I have another pastime, pyrotechnics. In history this is a craft where both in the Orient (which is apparently a bad word now?) and in southern Europe, people would labor as apprentices to masters for many years. Did this work? Absolutely. Here's the big question: Is it necessary for the production of quality or to achieve a master's level of ability? The answer is no. I'll link without the normal YouTube video panel because this is a thread about honing but here is a shell made by a person in my pyro club (that entire clip is one shell by the way). He did not apprentice for years, grinding charcoal and doing other such grunt work. He studied first, learned all he could, and then armed with the what and why he created shells. He's a master without having been an apprentice.

How is this possible?

Well he dove into the technology of it. He learned all he could and left out the unicorn fart portion. He would have been told by the Italian Masters to get back to sweeping the shop - but in the amount of time he would have learned to push a broom he learned to make shells because of the study. I am not disparaging the apprenticeship process, just pointing out that some people don't learn that way.

So too it is with honing. I learned about the rocks, learned about the terminology, learned what happens (as much as possible) with the slurry, looked ar SEM pictures of edges ... NONE of these things were available to blade makers in history. The pursuit of this knowledge is worthy because it allows me and people like me to know the why of what is going on, and that helps a whole bunch - YEARS worth. Last night I shaved with a Gold Dollar which I re-shaped myself, set the bevel, and honed myself ALL because of what I learned on here - basically the mail order method. I did not labor under a master, and I have not done hundreds let alone thousands of edges. This worked for me because of knowing what it is that's happening (or at least having a reasonable hypothesis which I can apply.)

So, in short; the why does matter. It helps me and people who think like me learn more quickly. It helps me apply what I see and hear to what (in theory) is going on at the microscopic level.

Here we are now at the term "proof." It is said that the term is to be used only for alcohol and mathematics. Maybe I believe that. I also believe a pedantic argument about proving what proof really is gets us nowhere - the irony in that statement defines the ridiculous nature of the effort.

I like the "scientific" discussions, I loathe people trying to prove how smart they are by arguing how other people's words (as opposed to the content) are wrong. Sometimes we do need to ask questions if the meaning is ambiguous, but we can certainly do that without running off those who can benefit from reading the discussion. My beloved Hank Stram would say "Just keep matriculatin' the ball down the field, boys." Was that the right word? Of course not. Was Hank Stram a coaching genius and did the meaning of that statement come through? Yes it did. Nobody corrected him and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
 
Well, I think we are seeing pretty positive proof that Jnat slurry causes crankiness....

:)

Brian
 
Well, I think we are seeing pretty positive proof that Jnat slurry causes crankiness....

:)

Brian

I personally never saw any real crankiness just a few jokes that might have come across wrong. With that said, let's keep this thread moving in the right direction. I think giving up on any issues that may or may not exist is a good start.
 
In any event, it has been better than a discussion of honing with tape or of the usefulness/importance of the hht...

And don't even start on using a DMT slurry :D
 

David

B&B’s Champion Corn Shucker
I think we can all agree that tomo slurry is better than DMT slurry.
I'm just kidding

 
The only "proof" I need is a 10x loupe look at the bevel. If the particles which are 2-3 micron if Im not mistaken, BEHAVE and put a scratch pattern on the razor bevel at a level finer than the 2-3 micron range then its good enough for me. If it acts like a fine abrasive, looks like a fine abrasive(in its scratch pattern) then to me it must be a fine abrasive. SEM says no. Ok then, well the bevel says yes. And since I only have to answer to it, I will leave the laboratory equipment for others. Not knocking the thirst for knowledge at all. We all have different ways of substantiating things. I prefer a simple approach. It is possible that if we were looking for abrasives to sharpen tools , knives and razors with, we may have come up with a conclusion that the Jnat is not fine enough based on the SEM images. So in a sense the cart is before the horse IMO anyway.
 
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Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
Those images aren't all that new, just never got much airplay here once the author was banned.

That's right, and the discussion is interesting. Todd's images IIRC show the silica pieces essentially unchanged, but most JNat fanatics can feel the slurry change at some point, usually called 'breaking', and believe the edge is better after worked on 'broken' slurry a bit.

Maybe a reasonable explantion is that we are dealing with clumps of silica and binder even when raised with a matched tomo nagura, and the binder is breaking making smaller clumps? That might explain how the slurry gets smoother and finer but the silica particles remain relatively unchanged.

Cheers, Steve
 
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