Okudo Suita

Size (mm) / Weight

195x73x26 / 872g

Performance

Hardness / Fineness: 4+ / 4+

This stone is hard and fine but comes with excellent sharpening feel and speed. 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. 

Aesthetics & Other Notes

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 are two lines at the periphery of the stone that can be felt under pressure but do not cause scratching or other sharpening problems. There is sparse renge and namazu patterning as well. This stone also comes with a dai.

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.