#789 Shoubudani Asagi Goma Namazu Easy Butterball Golden Retriever Stone LV3 Hard LV3.5 Fine 932 Grams

Ridiculously easy to use self slurrying Shoubudani with a soft buttery feeling producing a smooth kasumi finish. Great for a beginner or an experienced sharpener for milky kasumi finish. The golden retriever of stones. Excellent softish stone!  

Nice nearly full rectangular stone, it should be noted that the namazu have some hard mineralization below the surface, eventually you will get to it and need to scratch out a hard seam, in decades.

Dimensions: 181x78x28mm 932 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

Goma:

This aesthetic quality looks like tiny black dots, or little sesame seeds in the stone. This quality typically translates to having a fast cutting speed.

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. In extreme cases of Namazu where the stone is very hard, it can be scratchy with too much pressure.