Japanese Natural Whetstone Aiiwatani Namito & Aiiwatani Tomo Set 287g from Kyoto

This is a set of Aiwatani Namito & Aiwatani Namito Nagura from Kyoto Aichi Prefecture. Aiwatani is one of the good brands for pre-finishing a razor. It is a good link with a super fine finish, increases the sharpness of the blade. Quite hard, has a good abrasive, a good suspension comes out continuously, and the Tomo Nagura suspension allows you to speed up the process.

Size / Weight / Grit Size / Hardness

Aiiwatani Namito : 63mm x 130mm x 9-14mm (approx.) / 257g / #6000-8000 / Lv.4.0

Aiiwatani Namito Tomo Nagura : 20-32mm x 70-105mm x 18-22mm (approx.) / 163g / #6000-#8000 / Lv.4.0

- Excellent pre-finishing stone for razors, tools and finishing stone for knives.

The grain size of Japanese finishing stones is a rather relative concept, in any case it is thinner than the artificial stone No. 8000. This will give the famous Kasumi (cloudy) finish and extend the life of the blade. Natural stones are subjected to a final sharpening, and a smooth, sharp cutting edge is obtained. Japanese natural stones have such properties because the quality is not affected by the size of the abrasive particles, but by their shape. This is confirmed by research from the University of Tokyo. The SiO2 abrasive particles have the shape of rounded scales. They do not abrade, but remove steel like sod, especially in suspension. Thus, quite a bit of steel is removed, but the steel is also removed in such a way that the even serrated edge that will be formed when sharpening on artificial stones is not formed.

Using natural stones will allow you to cut more finely and at the same time will extend the service life of the edge. There is a good reason for this. In synthetic stones, the grinding particles are equal in size, while in natural ones - not. So, a blade sharpened with an artificial stone will have an even height of serrated teeth, so once those teeth become dull, the blade will stop cutting completely, but... when the height is different... I think you get my point. It's like shark teeth. They don't break right away.

Also, sharpening with a natural stone has a hardening effect on the blade's edge. This has been scientifically proven by the HRC testing machine, an experiment conducted by the famous blacksmith Usui Kengo. In fact, the hardness was higher after polishing with a thin natural stone. As you can see, it's not just about the sharpness achieved by natural stones. Once you use natural stones, you won't want to switch to artificial ones.