Shigefusa and his Whetstones

Iizuka-san,his wife,two sons, me

 I visited Shigefusa Hamono on 15th. I talked with Iizuka-san  2.5 hrs about kitchen knife making etc.

 I think one of big interest of my readers is what kind of whetstones he use in his workshop. I write the conclusion at first. There was no mysterious Jnat to make the wonderful finish. It is his craft which makes the wonderful finish and  not the stone!

 I asked what stones he uses for kasumi finish. He said "I use whetstones suitable to make the finish." It was to me that he did not care about mines or strata. It was more like if it works it's OK.

 I asked him to if I am able to take pictures of his stones and he said please.I think to show you the pictures is much better than to explain by my bad English words so here you have it:

 

Shigefusa Workbench

You see many stones. Many synthetic stones too.(you can click on picture to enlarge)

More Stones above Workbench

Nagura

I asked Iizuka-san if he uses nagura and the answer was he do not need to use nagura because his knives are clad with jigane.

Japanese Natural Stone

I think this is the natural stone he uses most. Iizuka-san did not say the mine or starta to me but I got information from the source who sold it to him that it is a very good Ohira Renge Suita. It had a big and ling toxic line and  other toxic inclusions but Iizuka-san dug it out as you can see on the picture.
I felt with my fingers that this stone is medium in hardness and I think it will make very nice kasumi (haze finish) to jigane (soft steel).
It is also a stone which inexperienced customer would send back to the seller because of toxic lines.

Edit to add: I did not see a single Jnat in his collection which had a maruka stamp.

I hope these information have been useful to the reader.