Asano Stamped Yae Botan Nagura
Most people honing razors will use regular Botan Nagura as their first stage in the Nagura progression. Yae Botan is similar in that it is coarse and fast, but it is a little coarser and sometimes it has quartzite inclusions.
The hard toxic inclusions usually show themselves right away, and most users in Japan will take a nail and gouge it out of the stone. You can see a small divot on the stone’s working surface; this was the result of cutting out one of those hard bits of stone.
This is a very fast Nagura to work with – it cuts steel exceedingly well. The slurry stays coarse for a good long time, but eventually it will break down and become finer for a good 1st stage polish.
If you have any questions about this piece of Yae, please shoot me an email here.
Approx. Dimensions: 2.5 x 1.9 x 0.9” / 64 x 48 x 23 mm
Weight: 5.4 oz / 153 g