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Show us your favourite Jnats for knives and tools

Here's an unfancy little Narutaki Tomae that shows nicely why this kind of thing can be a very good catch-all stone for Japanese knives. Cost me $60 from someone in the US, and I guess you could probably find for half that with some snooping around on Yahoo Japan.

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It's a soft stone and not the fastest thing in the world, but then it's a jnat and they're not. And because of that, what this kind kind of stone does do well is sharpening slowly without raising much of a noticeable burr.

On a lot of other types of stone that do that you're likely to get a very overly-refined edge in terms of kitchen knife use, but often with jnats you don't. This edge is fine but still has some bite even on Shirogami 2 which isn't the toothiest steel in the world. We can do nice wavy patterns in paper towel though.

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The real kicker in terms of versatility though is because it's quite muddy it also polishes nicely and easily. This knife had some bits of brown rust on it before I started because I'd cut a load of onions and not washed it up immediately. Coupla mins on the stone though and back looking fairly presentable I think, it's not a completely world-class finish off a long progression of fancy polishing stones, but it's a pretty nice kasumi with a minimum of fuss.

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There aren't many non-Japanese stones that can do this kind of dual-purpose versatility in the same way. Hindos and Dalmores might be slightly better for sharpening, but not quite as good a polish, and Belgian Blue Whetstone is slightly better for both, but that's about it.

I don't use jnats very often tbh, but even the less glamorous ones like this have a certain charm and feel to them, and will do things that not many other stones can replicate.
 
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I’ve seen this knife in a lot of your sharpening pictures. May I ask what it is? My gut instinct is Mazaki, manaka, or maybe kochi? Maybe less famous from tosa?
 
I am a big fan of Uchigumori and so here is one I got that was used as a sword polisher in the past with live edge on one side and hand sawed and scraped side on the other.


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Sweet! Go on then - show us some fancy polish from it :)

I imagine that small cladding-etched/damascus knife you have probably comes up a treat on something like that...
 
I’ve seen this knife in a lot of your sharpening pictures. May I ask what it is? My gut instinct is Mazaki, manaka, or maybe kochi? Maybe less famous from tosa?


Good eye! It's a 210 Nashiji Ku Maz. Late 2018-ish profile, which (imo) is still his best, though I did have to do a significant thinning job on it.

Most of my knives are still on the way back from Aus, but tbh I don't have that many fancy ones anyway. That gyuto, a Maz petty, Kippington, Shibata TT, and a couple of Blemheim Forge. Otherwise though I just have a lot of caidao / cleavers, and small collection of old yanagi I've restored.
 

Steve56

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Hey Oli, here ya go sir, posh stuff, some of it anyway!

First image, left to right, Hakka, Nakayama sunashi suita, and a Hatanaka maruka kiita from Alex G. He still has a short video of this kiita up on his site last time that I checked, sharpening a plane blade. Both the suita and kiita can finish razors.

Second image, left to right, an aoto, good finisher but a bit on the slow side as most of them are, but makes a great finish. No idea what the white one is, it’s hard, fairly slow and about 1-2k in grit range. The right hand stone was sold as possibly an aizu, it’s also hard and not overly fast, maybe 3-4k range. The aoto finishes knives well and is traditional, but TBH I’d reach for a kuromaku before the other two unless I’m just havin’ some fun.

Third image, left to right a Narutaki tenjou suita from Alex G, great knife finisher and produces a great metal finish. Middle, a shiro suita, also tenjou, from Max. Right, a small shiro floor suita also from Alex, probably Okudo, and this stone is a frequent kitchen knife finisher for me.

The knife is a 200m Takeda sasanoa, or bamboo leaf knife for scale. It’s basically a big petty but nice and fairly unusual, the width is between a gyuto and a slicer.

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Hey Oli, here ya go sir, posh stuff, some of it anyway!

First image, left to right, Hakka, Nakayama sunashi suita, and a Hatanaka maruka kiita from Alex G. He still has a short video of this kiita up on his site last time that I checked, sharpening a plane blade. Both the suita and kiita can finish razors.

Second image, left to right, an aoto, good finisher but a bit on the slow side as most of them are, but makes a great finish. No idea what the white one is, it’s hard, fairly slow and about 1-2k in grit range. The right hand stone was sold as possibly an aizu, it’s also hard and not overly fast, maybe 3-4k range. The aoto finishes knives well and is traditional, but TBH I’d reach for a kuromaku before the other two unless I’m just havin’ some fun.

Third image, left to right a Narutaki tenjou suita from Alex G, great knife finisher and produces a great metal finish. Middle, a shiro suita, also tenjou, from Max. Right, a small shiro floor suita also from Alex, probably Okudo, and this stone is a frequent kitchen knife finisher for me.

The knife is a 200m Takeda sasanoa, or bamboo leaf knife for scale. It’s basically a big petty but nice and fairly unusual, the width is between a gyuto and a slicer.

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That’s what I’m talking about! Lovely kit.

The one on the right in the second pic looks and sounds a lot like a very old Iyo stone I got from Otto a while back. A fairly hard, slow mid-grit, and not particularly easy to use (to put it mildly).

I don’t use it at all for sharpening actually because it’s so slow, but like a lot of good, mid-grit jnats it does very interesting things with polish and picking up nuances in steel and banding.

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Just put two and two together and realized that the maker of that eel knife Okeya is the same maker as my folding blue #2 Kogatana.
What do you use the eel knife for by the way?
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Yep. I have an Okeya kiridashi too. Afaics they basically specialise in single bevel blades, both kitchen knives and woodworking/other.

Err... I largely use the Unagisaki for polishing practice tbh. I've sold a few, but kept that one for myself mostly cos they look cool. You could also use it as a Deba.
 
Mine was not ku (which I'm now hunting). I think I sold it to Danzo, who then sold it himself. The extreme reactivity turned me off it, but I'm hoping I can love it again...


Ah yeah my Maz petty is the kasumi/migaki version and it's crazy reactive - annoyingly so. The KU is considerably better, a more 'normal' level, though I don't know if that's always the case or it varies on a batch by batch basis.

Good luck in the hunt, it's a really excellent knife. At the time I probably paid a bit over the odds for mine, because I didn't want BF to lose anything on the price he'd paid, but I think that style and profile is probably getting quite desirable now (after all the triangles! ;)).
 
What frustrates me about these knives, is that they are meant to be polished on stones. But the iron is so reactive it's meant to build a patina. But you can’t keep the patina if you polish on stones.... But but but...

This is strapping a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropping it. The logic just spins and there is never an answer.
 
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