As usual great info and entertaining. Thanks. My wife just gave me one your koma nagura for my birthday, completing my Mikawa set that she had previously bought me. I have honed 4 razors using koma. Love the the distinct albeit subtle feedback as it breaks down. I have been using a Black Ark as a finisher after honing on a coticule with good results for my beard and have experimented using a Black Ark after tomo just for kicks. I haven't shaved with the koma edge but look forward to it (working on a 8-month beard that is about to go). Any way, thanks for the education, great service, and great products. The whole experience has been a blast.
Ahh, cool, now I can connect a few dots.... was wondering where that Koma was headed. Your wife is super nice, btw...Anyway, you got a really nice Koma, that's for sure. Happy honing and Happy Shaves too!
There are far, far, far too many videos are misinformative or promotional. Yours are always solid. Always. It is a shame that so many new shavers do not have enough data to recognize the difference.
Some seem to think the 'softer' komo is coarser less fine than the 'harder' komo. So far for me its the other way around.. The softer asano seems blazing fast and fine.
@@KeithVJohnson1 I agree, some stones in the Jnat world, are way finer than their hardness, and the grit of those seem rich, and lays in the stone very well..
Not that it really matters but Honzan isn't really the correct term when discussing Mikawa Nagura. I used a large Koma in the video, you can use them for whatever you want really. Sword polishers use them, many sharpeners do actually. Cost of any stone is contingent on rarity, quality, etc.
Do you have any thoughts on the stock of Koma that has the black speckles in it you see around now? Out of curiosity, how long do you see these smaller Koma stones lasting you personally? I know you do a lot of honing, so curious if you actually wear through any of them.
None of the Koma I have for sale has black speckles, so I can't share on that topic. I do hone a lot but I also have a lot of Nagura and I trade stuff out all the time. So I don't wear through anything ever really.
Just wanted to follow up here after removing some trolling dis-information on my channel. Seems to be a lot of that going on over the last 6 months. No one can evaluate a stone they don't have in their hand. Someone might have a striped, spotted, speckled, etc stone of whatever layer and it can be totally different than a visually identical piece. Anyone putting out blanket statements such as 'those spotted stones are...." is talking out of their ass. They may have 1-2 stones that look like yours, but they're not the exact stone in someone else's hands. There are Nagura mined 100 years ago, and some in 1980 - some Nagura have sat in outdoor lockers for 50 yr, others went from the tunnel, to the shop, to the collector and have been in a controlled environment for many decades. Then there's the influx of fake stamped Nagura, which is on a serious uptick since the pandemic started. And so on and so forth. So...when someone asks me about this or that Nagura, it's really impossible to say. I tell everyone the same thing - evaluate each stone on it's own merits. Buy from known solid sellers that have been using the stones they sell for a long time. Even then, question every piece - a stone coming out of the ground isn't bound by the laws of nature to be one way or another. Basically, any Nagura can have any number of personalities. Lastly, one of the ways I stay out of internet-based drama is by not making specific comments about stones sold by other people. A few years ago a seller on Etsy blew a gasket because I told one of my customers that a Nagura he owned looked like Chu from Nigata. I was probably correct, but I didn't know the Nagura in question has been sold by another vendor on Etsy. Apparently, this seller thought he found a magic goose that lays golden eggs. He didn't. He handled the situation like any internet bully would try to, but his ranting means nothing to anyone ever. Dealing with people like that is such a waste of time. So now I always ask... where did you get it from? And then I tell people to talk with that seller about that stone.
II try to not have opinions about what other people do or how they hone because, well, it's none of my business really. Me, I've used Mikawa Nagura on all kinds of stones. -Even used Tshumia Black on an 8k synth...did a video of it too. There are very few, if any, combinations I haven't tried. My regular go-to honing is Jnat with Mikawa Nagura , it's the only process that makes me happy.
