# Diamond plates Vs Naguras on Jnats



## Marcelo Amaral (Feb 15, 2016)

What is your take on this? Maksim at JNS left his take on this matter here

Maybe a finer atoma could be used to raise smaller particles instead of stone chunks in order to mitigate what Maksim puts as the natural stone behaving like a synth? Anyone have experience on this comparison?

Thanks for the answers!


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## spoiledbroth (Feb 15, 2016)

nvm


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## rick_english (Feb 15, 2016)

I disagree. An extra fine diamond hone will make slurry quickly and reliably, and will not wear out a natural stone in my lifetime. People who push naguras are, in my opinion, people who are trying to sell naguras.


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## Matus (Feb 15, 2016)

Well, as long as your diamond plate will not leave a diamond or two on your natural stone you are fine. If it does, you will most probably get some not very nice scratches (or so I was warned)


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## psfred (Feb 15, 2016)

There are several ways to consider this. I've been doing some reading on using natural stones, and one of the ways is to use only a very hard, fine stone with different nagura stones to produce "mud" of different particle sizes for razors. Makes sense to me, as the slurry is doing all the work, the stone just acts as a holder for the grit, even when the slurry is raised with another piece of the hard fine stone to polish with.

Or you can just consider the nagura to be the stone you use to raise a slurry and the content of it doesn't count -- this would be true if the grit size was matched with the stone. It would mean a progression of stones rather than a progression of naguras on a hard finisher, but the result for a fine edge (razor) would be the same. 

When it comes to knives and wide bevels, this may not be so true. It would definitely make a difference with woodworking tools I think. 

And as usual when it comes to sharpening, there are many ways around the barn that give similar results....

One thing you DO need to avoid is a scattering of coarse particles on finish stones, it's very disappointing to find deep scratches in what should be a finished edge.

Peter


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## chinacats (Feb 15, 2016)

I use nagura with razor stone...not to slurry the stove but to use the nagura slurry to sharpen.


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## Marcelo Amaral (Feb 16, 2016)

Peter, i'm just a novice at sharpening razors, and the approach of using a very hard stone on several different slurries makes sense if the slurry is the responsible for abrading the edge. I'm not saying that it's not, i think it is sometimes. Just think that depending on the level of edge refinement we are at, even a hard stone can provide that final polish (even if only water is used) that we seek, provided the hard stone doesn't scratch.
The second way to consider it you mention (if the slurry's grit size is matched with the stone's): is this your way of saying the stone itself is abrading the edge, maybe together with the slurry? 
My main concern is if the quality of the slurry is the same whether we use, for instance, an atoma 1200 or a nagura. By quality i mean if the slurry abrades the same way no matter how it is raised (of course provided that no diamond is plucked from the diamond plate and rests in the slurry).
Through a KKF friend, i found Keith Johnson's site on razor honing very interesting, lots to learn!
http://www.tomonagura.com/honing-straight-razors/treatise-on-razor-honing.html


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## Asteger (Feb 16, 2016)

Obrigado, Marcelo - Very interesting thread. I was thinking of starting something like this.

In the past year I've got 2 grits of Atoma diamond 'nagura' (I think they were labelled) off the infamous CooksBladesTwoGo. They seem to be a third or a quarter of a normal Atoma plate, cut and glued onto a bit of wood. I got them, good idea I thought, and then smoothed out the (too many) rough edges and lacquered them for looks and feel, and then used them. They seem not to have been mounted uniformly and wore quickly in a non-consistent way. Was the mounting wood not flat enough? At any rate, duh!

Recently I got a made-by-Atoma 400 grit diamond slurry stone (blue plastic handle thing; had searched for these by never seen them before) from Aframes which has worked better. It was still rough-ish around the edges, and I think released diamonds 2 or 3 times, before calming down. The others above were more square-shaped which I liked, and the authentic Atoma is more rectangular, but it's performed better. Takeshi of AF says this is what he uses too. 

I'd say if you're sharpening razors (I don't) you'd want to follow the gentler traditional techniques and flatten/maintain stones by rubbing with other stones, not diamonds. Rushing isn't the point, anyway. I also got a kick out of this comment, which probably has some truth!



rick_english said:


> I disagree. An extra fine diamond hone will make slurry quickly and reliably, and will not wear out a natural stone in my lifetime. People who push naguras are, in my opinion, people who are trying to sell naguras.



Poor Maxim, but thanks, Rick. 

However, with knives and layered gotogi finishing stones I don't think it's a problem using diamond nagura to work up your slurry. If you want to only experience slurry from that single stone, this is surely a good and fast way, provided you don't wear out your stone prematurely - because your nats should last your life. 

When it comes to non-layered naturals (like the Tajima and Aizu you have, Marcelo) they're so strong and dense that I think you could diamond-away at them for years and years. Natsuya too, because while it's softer it's still so big. If with experience with razors you find the slurry's too aggressive or rough on razors this way, I don't know. But for me and knives, I wouldn't think twice.

Marcelo - I've had a few good discussions with Tomo Keith, and you might try asking him too, then posting here. In my experience he doesn't mind at all if you use his words, though you could ask first. Real razor stone nut.


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## Marcelo Amaral (Feb 16, 2016)

Hi Gerrard! 
You may be right to say that the atoma raised slurry might be too aggressive for razors. I really couldn't figure it out so far.
Regarding asking Keith about putting a link to his page on KKF, i'll definitely do that. Just want to be clear that my posts on this matter are my words. Maybe it was unclear because after posting my take on this, i pasted here a link to his page.
Thanks for dropping by!


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## psfred (Feb 16, 2016)

I'm just dipping my toe into the world of natural stones, but the idea of using a very hard, fine stone as the surface to hone a razor with variable grit slurry from different nagura stones makes a great deal of sense. In essence, you have a single stone, very hard, that serves as a variable grit stone -- each nagura makes a slurry of a different grit for sharpening. A medium natural would be used to re-set a bevel or repair chips, I think, but making a slurry on that very hard stone for each grit slows down that speed to avoid over-sharpening and the constant use of naguras will help keep the stone dead flat. Final slurry is raised with another piece of the fine stone, so it will polish much faster. The stone itself isn't doing much but holding the grit -- if it's like my cheap chinese one, nothing much happens with just water. Until it has slurry on it, the blade mostly just skates around. 

I don't sharpen razors, but I do sharpen a lot of woodworking tools, and I think the edges desired have some things in common -- high polish, durable edges, and the requirement for a very flat surface to make them. May play around with this since I have recently acquired a very very hard Chinese stone of approximately 12,000 grit. With some work it is possible to obtain a very nicely polished bevel on chisels and plane blades -- I don't see much use for it on knives for kitchen use as it takes way too long and way too much pressure. I might be able to use my synthetic stones to raise a slurry of the appropriate grit series if I use the softer ones (like King stones -- finally a use for them!) and see what happens. I don't expect to do much to that hard Chinese stone, it was a real pain to get it near flat with a diamond plate...

Using a coarse stone to raise a slurry for final polishing could be a problem, ditto for using a diamond plate much coarser than the stone. A hard finishing stone with a slurry raised with a coarse stone may very well have fairly coarse particles in the slurry that act like grit from a coarser stone, particularly if that finishing stone is one of the very hard ones. You will also leave texture on the surface of the stone itself if the "nagura" is much coarser that the stone, which may or may not do anything beyond speeding the stone up -- it effectively raises the local pressure on the edge. 

Slurry from a similar grit stone should just speed up hard stones by providing available grit. This probably applies much more to natural stones than synthetic ones, especially hard ones. Very hard stones are slow because the grit isn't super sharp like synthetic stones. Working up a slurry of grit broken free of the stone but catching and rolling on the stone itself greatly speeds up metal abrasion, and if that grit becomes smaller as you sharpen, will also polish. The grit of the stone itself isn't doing much in this case, it's only effective if suspended in the slurry. Much faster to use a nagura to work up slurry than work it up with the blade being sharpened -- some stones simply won't produce a slurry fast enough using the blade.

I'll get right to work testing this all out if someone will send me a pile of natural stones and naguras to play with..... 

Peter


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## brooksie967 (Feb 17, 2016)

FWIW I've honed 600+ razors over the past 4 to 5 years. I've used synths, jnats, eschers, coticules, naguras, diamond plates etc.

I've used a 600 grit DMT credit card sized plate for... years, and never felt a diamond was released in my slurry OR that the slurry was too abrasive/thick/chunky/damaging for use on a straight razor. I've also used a 325 (too coarse for me) and a 1200 (abrasive stones seemed to pull the nickel plating off) so I settled on the 600.

Diamond plate slurry on a jnat is, IMO, faster than tomo nagura slurry 99% of the time (this is dependant on your combination of course) and can be used on a glass hard ozuku right after setting a bevel on a 1k stone (like my chosera). 

Diamond plate slurry for the finishing stages should obviously be less abundant on your hone. More slurry/thicker slurry = more abrasive which doesn't really play well for the final finishing stages. 

DPs on hard stones can also be used to tame a stone that typically pulls/smudges soft cladding on knives and will produce a nicer kasumi finish than said stone on water only. 

After all is said and done, i prefer to use a medium grit/semi hard suita after my 1k chosera, then koma and then a tomo nagura on my finisher. I prefer the edges from nagura slurry BUT dmt slurry when worked properly and used in the right potency produces edges that are close enough i'm not sure anyone would notice. 

As far as wearing out your stone.... Not gonna happen. Nope. Never. Unless you lap for a few hours a day a hard razor finisher isn't going to disappear in our lifetimes from simple raising of slurry or lapping maintenance. I used my first ozuku for years, lapped before every use and used a diamond plate to raise slurry and i think i lost about 1mm +- a few microns over that time frame.

Just thinking out loud: Naguras are a funny thing and it's not always hardness that determines how slurry is formed on a base stone. I've got some softer nagura that are significantly more abrasive than the harder base stone and they actually raise a mix of base stone and nagura slurry. I've got hard naguras that I can rub for hours on my hard stones and next to no slurry is raised. Finding naguras that work with your stone the best is a bit of a challenge sometimes and why buying from someone reputable that has this experience is beneficial for a new user.


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## maxim (Feb 17, 2016)

why will i want to push naguras ? when Dimond stones is so much more expensive  
the only reason i want to push naguras is becose Kato recommended to use them Shig recommend to use them Iwasaki use them and recommend them
And all of them say dont use Dimond to make slurry. Plus i test it my self and like naguras better then diamond slurry in every situation, knives razors tools, i can manipulate with the stone much better and cheaper. So thats why.
If you love to use diamond on Jnats and you get super good results, why not just use it


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## Marcelo Amaral (Feb 17, 2016)

Hi Maxim!

I don't think you push naguras or anything else based on your record as a vendor here and my personal experience with you.
Sorry to open a thread that contributed to that.
As a novice razor user, i was just trying to get more opinions about the subject.
Is there any literature i can get that talks about this kind of thing?


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## Marcelo Amaral (Feb 17, 2016)

Brooksie, what do you mean by "pull the nickel plating off"? You mean off of the base? Why 1200's would be more prone to that than the other diamond plates? Have you tried an atoma 1200?


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## brooksie967 (Feb 17, 2016)

Marcelo Amaral said:


> Brooksie, what do you mean by "pull the nickel plating off"? You mean off of the base? Why 1200's would be more prone to that than the other diamond plates? Have you tried an atoma 1200?




It's my understanding that DMT uses nickel (or some metal) to electroplate the diamonds to the surface of their plates. Perhaps it's from the particle size of the diamonds on the DMT and how they are arranged on the plate that allows the abrasive of the stone to remove metal from it. 

The 1200 I have, within a few strokes, leaves black swarf on my jnats. It didn't do this with any other kind of stone. 

This issue was before dmt was using their 'hardcoat' technology which I haven't played with yet. 

I've played with atomas but since I've had these forever I'm still gonna use them and to be honest I don't have any reason to use the 1200 on a stone. 99% of the time I use naguras and like them more. My point is that diamond nagura slurry can work and does work just fine as long as it's used properly.


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## Asteger (Feb 17, 2016)

I've had 2 mini-Atomas (mentioned above) wear out on stones, with the plating worn away. I also like using natural nagura too, of course, but here's the Atoma one I like from Aframes:

http://yhst-27988581933240.stores.yahoo.net/atoma-14-size-diamond-whetstone-400-rough14400.html


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## psfred (Feb 17, 2016)

Typically diamonds are held onto the steel plates by plating nickel around the diamonds. They are held to the plate ONLY by the presence of nickel metal around them, and hence can fairly easily be pulled loose. Obviously, better quality plating, and thicker plating, will hold the diamonds more firmly. Cheap plates also have relatively fewer diamonds per unit of surface area, making the loading under friction higher for each individual one. Coarser diamonds are more likely to be pulled loose as well as they tend to be less embedded in the plating.

That is why cheap ones fail more easily -- I've scraped nearly all the diamonds off a few cheapies learning to use them. The trick is very low pressure, let the diamonds do the work. Polycrystalline diamonds also fracture much more easily, so you can actually crush them with too much pressure and end up with a much finer grit that you started with -- the remnants are much smaller. The plate will polish rather than grind.

The difference between using a nagura and a diamond on a hard natural stone is that often you will be making the grit in the slurry from the nagura rather than the stone itself, the point of using a progression of naguras on a stone rather than diamonds. Diamonds will raise grit from the stone itself, finer or coarser depending on the diamond. Just a different source of grinding grit.

If the Chinese finisher I have is any indication, you'd really have to work to use it up by raising slurry.....

Peter


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