Mikawa White Nagura Natural whetstone Botan (ボ タ ン) With Asano Seal

As well known, this is Asano Nagura Botan The layer from which Botan comes is stronger cutting, approx. grit 3000, good for small knives, chisels. For razor, please treat it as bevel setting.

-Dimension & Weight 

15-34мм x 90-95мм x 7-9мм / 47 g   

*-Hardness: 3.0-3.5 Medium Soft / #3000

- Excellent stone for razors, knives, chisel, carpenter's tools

**How to use Mikawa Nagura as a whetstone for direct sharpening

The abrasive material contained in Nagura is quartz like the Kyoto Jnat finisher, and the reason why Nagura is white is that most of it is made of quartz powder. You can see the performance as a whetstone for direct sharpening and the high abrasive power. Nowadays, there are few products that have the size of a whetstone for direct sharpening, and it is rare to get them. Many of the natural whetstones produced in Kyoto are superior in terms of fineness of particles.

**How to get the slurry in Nagura

When using it for finishing a hard natural whetstone, water the natural finishing whetstone and rub Nagura on the surface of the whetstone to get the slurryof Nagura containing the abrasive. If you sharpen with this slurry, you can quickly get a good blade.

- Also good to use as Tomo Nagura for eliminating the clogging of whetstone, creating slurry will definitely speed up your sharpening process. 

Mr. Sakamoto recommends leaving the nagura in water for 5-10 minutes before use. This will make it softer and make it easier to prepare a thin gruel. It also avoids nagura scratches on the main stone. When using just a spray of water and preparing a suspension with a "dry" nagura, not only the main stone becomes scratched, but the particles of the stone can disintegrate at an unexpected moment, a beautiful polished bevel can become unpleasantly scratched in the blink of an eye. especially on hard stones!

Soaking the nagura before honing avoids this, 5-10 minutes is enough, leaving it to soak for ½ to 1 hour is also not a problem.