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Vintage Renge Suita Japanese Natural Sharpening Stone 678g (1lb. 8oz.)
It was found it in Hawaii where I live. It might be from Hawaii plantation era. There is lots of immigrants from Japan, so there is lots of old Japanese tools and sharpening stones that we can see, but I have never seen high quality renge suita like this in Hawaii from plantation era. It might be Ohira suita or Okunomon suita or somewhere else mine in Kyoto.
188mmX67mmX20-23mm It is fine grit finish for high carbon cooking knife or Japanese plane and chisel
It has beautiful renge pattern on the sharpening surface.
Hardness------- 8.5
It raises good enough amount of black color slurry quickly. It is very fast cut stone in the fine grit stone.
(Scale; 1 to 10, 1-3 is very soft muddy rough grit whetstone 3-6 is soft medium grit whetstone, 6-8 is hard medium grit whetstone, 8-10 is fine grit whetstone)
Particle Size------ 8.4
(Scale; 1 to 10, 1-3 give deep scratch marks to the steel, 3-5 is delete the 1-3 scratches, 5-8 makes the steel cloudy, 8-10 makes the steel semi-mirror finish or mirror finish)
It makes my blue II steel blade knife Jigane to frosted silver color, and Hagane became semi-mirror finish.
Probably around from 4000 grit to 6000 grit. Natural whetstone has wider capacity than artificial whetstone, and actually, we do not know until sharpen blade on the hone for a while. Because artificial whetstone molecules do not break down to smaller sizes, but Natural whetstone molecules are possible to break down to smaller sizes, and those molecules are mixed with sharpened steel molecules, and make Jigane as suitable Jigane color (it also shows Damascus pattern vividly), and Hagane as suitable Hagane color. It is natural mystics.