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Jnat ID

I rec’d this as a gift but unsure what it is, or if it’s good enough for razors. I believe previous owner said it was an hard shoobadani (spelling?) and would need to use slurry stones to get anywhere. The bigger stone is maybe a little more blueish-grey in person, about 7”x2.5”. Looks like some inclusions may have been removed and not sure, but looks like faint remnants of a stamp. Any of you more experienced guys have any insights?

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There's really only one way to know whether a JNat is a good razor finisher.

Based purely on the similarity of look to stones I have, my guess would be that it has a high probability of being a very good razor pre-finisher. It might be a good razor finisher, and it might not. Try it and see!
 
Hone on them. See what you can do with them.
Can't tell what they are or how they work by looking at pix.
I have had stones that look like both of them and some were good whetstones and some were not.

Someone might want to sound good and guess they are from Tomae strata. Meanwhile, there are 42 seams in Tomae and they produced a lot of whetstones. If someone guesses Tomae often enough, they'll be correct sometimes.
Doesn't matter though.
The Kiita-ish one looks like a split from a thicker piece. Looks like maybe some Kawa running through it. Bigger one looks like a lot of stones I've seen from all over.
 
Cool, thanks. I was afraid that would be the answer, but was hoping to get lucky with an ID. Kinda like how people see other non-jnat stones and know for sure what they are and the likelihood of their capabilities. Slim chance of me evaluating it accurately. Throw in slurry dilutions, all the different baby rocks, and matching stone to steel, we’ve reached absolute zero. Jnat stuff is deep.

Neighbor was over with his son and he saw it sitting on the counter. Liked the colors/patterns and wanted it for his turtle. I didnt want to give him a finisher, so figured i’d ask about it here first. But if its pre-finisher at best/maybe good, maybe not, he might as well enjoy it for a while rather than it collecting dust.
 
I would recommend getting a razor to near finish and then lightly slurry your stone and test the stone with just the slurry. Look at the edge before and after. It should give you an idea of how fine the stone is. You can also test the Shobo by adding some water to the top of it and see how long it takes the stone to absorb the water. The harder stones normally will not absorb that water for a long time. Normally the harder stones are usually finer and normally make for good to excellent finishers for razors. Best of luck!
 
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