Shoubu Tomae

Size (mm) / Weight

205x75x41 / 1,740g

Performance

Hardness / Fineness: 3+ / 4

At their best, Shoubudani tomae are soft, easy to use, and leave a deep matte finish. They excel at converting higher grit synthetic scratches to kasumi. The edges are also good for kitchen knives, finishing in the 6-7k range, a good alternative to softer suita. It is very grit consistent and fast enough to work well with honyaki knives too. It will leave a very clean core steel and cladding. You can jump from this stone to your finest finishing stones during polishing without issue. This stone may seem plain or even boring to some eyes, but it is a tremendous value performer. A suita this size and this clean cold easily be 4-6x as expensive for very similar performance.

Notes

This stone has a more muted coloring than some others with a consistent moss green color. What it lacks in flash, it more than makes up for in performance and purity. This stone is large and has no visible inclusions in all 1.7kg. It would be an excellent choice as a workhorse stone that will last years of heavy use. The back of the stone is stamped and shows some hand chiseling and kawa. This stone is sealed on four sides with matte cashew lacquer. The surface stamps on this stone are now very faded after testing.

Shoubu (菖蒲谷, Shoubudani, 菖蒲谷)

An Eastern mine well regarded for its suita. While this mine may not have the same caché as Ohira or Nakayama in the West, stones from this mine are generally very high quality. Wholesale prices for Shoubu suita are some of the fastest increasing of all stones.