Posted on September 30, 2011 When dealing with stones that have no ink stamps it is nice to have some reference points to go back to. I...

Posted on October 6, 2011 I have been asked about soaking natural japanese sharpening stones in water before use. Although this is just an opinion, I tend to not be in favor of soaking natural awasedo stones. Someone has recently thrown out there that it is OK to soak these stones because they have spent millions of years in water already, why not now. It is true that the stones mined near Kyoto were “born” as sediment in pools of water, but the fact is that for the most rece

Posted on January 20, 2013 There are 2 main types of layers in the Kyoto mines, and each type contains several varieties of stone. The...