Okudo Tenjyou Suita

Size (mm) / Weight

242x77x50 / 1,965g

Performance

Hardness / Fineness: 4+ / 5-

This stone is hard and fine but comes with excellent sharpening feel and speed. It will not generate mud and I recommend forcing a slurry to speed up sharpening for knives. Rather it will rapidly build up black slurry as you work the blade on the stone. With appropriate patience and technique the stones leaves a glossy, refined kasumi on both soft clad and core steel. The feedback and cutting speed of the stone indicate that it would be a suitable honyaki stone if one was pushing the extremes of polishing with Hitachi steel blades. Edges are refined, but extremely well suited to kitchen knives both single and double beveled. This stone also works nicely with carpentry tools such as chisels and kanna and is an excellent pre-finisher for razors. For razors, tools, and polishing, I don't recommend forcing a slurry as I've found the slurry to be inconsistent and less fine than I'd like. With a thorough stropping regime involving some form of compound, it would be suitable as a razor finisher as well.

Aesthetics & Other Notes

Most of us imagine koppa as smaller stones, but the term also applies to any irregularly shaped stone. While koppa are considered “less perfect” than their square brethren, they offer the benefit of being significantly cheaper on a per gram basis. While this stone is still expensive, it is significantly more affordable than a rectangular stone of similar quality. The stone currently displays a deep yellow coloring, but the sides show that the stone will evolve over its lifetime. There is little, if any, visible su and no toxic lines. There is sparse renge and namazu patterning as well.

Okudo (奥殿)

An Eastern mine famous for its suita. These stones are often given the moniker “King of Suita” and are, perhaps, the most in coveted suita. They are generally very hard, quite fine, and rather fast. Authentic stones from Okudo are typically very expensive and rarely available.