Big Things Afoot at Maruoyama

Maruoyama stones have not been the best for razors. Until recently, that is.

As I hone more and more razors on Japanese stones, one thing becomes clear to me--the hardness of the stone is of immense importance. Soft stones simply don't give good shaving edges, no matter how pure or "fine" they might be. The Maruo stones I've had up until now have all been excellent for knives and the like, but they have simply been too soft for razors. The website for these stones, Totoriya (Japanese Link), lists this as one of the main differences between "Western Stones" (including Maruoyama) and "Eastern Stones" (including Nakayama).

However, the other day I was reading a blog (Japanese Link) kept by a self-named "Natural Stone Researcher", and he mentioned that he had just gotten a Maruo stone that was too hard for plane honing...which is usually just where we want razor stones to be. I contacted him, and he explained that the mine at Maruo was getting into the very center of the mountain, where the stones should be their hardest. Thus, there were new grades of stones being found all the time.

Not three days later, I saw right there one the Maruo home page their very first "Kamisori hone". Until now, not even the owner felt that the Maruo stones were quite right for razors, but now he had one that reached that point. Unfortunately it had sold already, but I contacted him and he said that more and more of these should be coming, though he couldn't predict when. I put in a standing order...and last Friday my stone came in!

This is a Maruoyama Kamisori To, from the Hachimai seam near to the Senmai seam.


(The wooden frame is a "honing base" from Totoriya, a cheap and interesting piece of work.)

As you can see, it's an almost uniform dark gray except for a portion at the side, which has a nice golden brown streaking.



It's small, and not really uniform, but there's plenty of honing space for razors.

I lapped it, and it was indeed hard--as hard as any Japanese stone I've tried. If you look at the slurry I raised with the botan:



You can see there there's only a hint of gray in the white--meaning that the slurry is primarily from the nagura, as it should be. Too much gray, and it would be slurry from the stone itself and no good for Botan honing. What's more, raising a slurry from the tomonagura I got from my barber took FOREVER, again--this means that the stone is hard enough to not release any slurry without being told to.

All of which is good news!

I've honed a couple of razors on it and will get back with the results, but the preliminary tests are encouraging. Fingers crossed!