How to use your fine sharpening stone
- Before using the fine stone for sharpening, immerse it in water for 5-6 minutes.
- However, if you leave it in water for too long, the stone will start to soften - the surface, in particular.
- Ideally, the time spent sharpening a blade with a fine stone should be kept as short as possible.
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To achieve this, it is important to follow a process, proceeding from a basic blade creation stage through to the actual sharpening steps.
In principle, we recommend
using "Orange (1000)" to produce the basic blade,
then "Green (2000)", "Wine (5000)" and "Yellow (12000)" to sharpen it progressively.
Spending only a little time
on each step of the sharpening process tends to produce a sharp surface more quickly, with a cleaner finish, than sharpening the blade for a long time with only a limited
number of stones.
It also ensures any deformation of the stones is kept to a minimum.
- It is important to wash off any dirt produced in the previous step.
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Each time you change the type of stone to proceed to a finer sharpening step,
it is important to wash off any dirt produced in the previous step.
It is not enough
merely to rinse the blade and your hands: you should carefully and thoroughly wash off any films of dirt on your hands, fingernails, and the surface of the blade.
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How well the sharpening stone surface has been lapped will result in differences in the stone's surface strength, the blade's finish, and the feeling you have when sharpening.
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The fine stone's surface needs to be lapped to a mirror finish.
We recommend you lap your fine stone either by rubbing it against a fine stone (at least 1000 grit),
or
by using a combination of the "NAORU" lapping plate with "Fine Lapping Powder",
or the "KUBO" Diamond Reference Lapping Plate, or the "Diamond Glass Lapping Plate".
Note
that if the sharpening stone is dry, it will adhere and you will be unable to lap it well.
Please immerse it in water for 2 to 3 minutes before lapping.
