Easy to use, self slurrying, Shoubudani with a crisp but smooth feeling producing a  bright kasumi finish. Great for a beginner or an experienced sharpener for prep for finer mirror finish or as a toothy polish for knives that like that.

Price is reduced for a mineral seam in the middle that has a little light reflection in it, I did not find it to be scratchy but it might need to be removed (scraped out with a nail or ice pick) later on. 

Dimensions: 152x70x29 776 grams

No lacquer applied to sides

Shoubudani:

A ‘Higashi-mono’ (Eastern Mine Stone), Shoubudani is well known for producing a wide range of stones with different hardness and fineness. The Shoubudani mine produces some of the higher quality natural whetstones that are akin to Nakayama mine stones in their beautiful finish.

Asagi:

This aesthetic term refers to the general color of the stone. Typically, Asagi stones are grey, light blue, greyish-blue/green, and tan. They are usually quite clean stones that are on the harder side. However, softer Asagi stones are great for knife polishing.

Nashiji:

Meaning ‘pear-skin’, this aesthetic quality looks like tiny brown/pale dots on the stone. This quality can look similar to Su-holes on Suita stones as well as be a quality on Suita.

Namazu:

Translating to ‘cat-fish’, this aesthetic quality looks like white blotches on the stone. Usually this quality has a great sharpening feel that is smooth and tactile.