Upgrade your Sharpening With Naniwa Upgrade Kit
The Naniwa Upgrade Kit provides essentials that every sharpener needs: a stone holder for stability, a flattening stone to maintain a level surface, and a strop for achieving a razor-sharp edge, ensuring your sharpening setup is complete and effective.
With these three items, you can hold you sharpening stones steady, keep them well surfaced, and polish your edges to razor sharp perfection.
Naniwa's Adjustable Stone Holder
The Naniwa Toishi Dai Stone Holder is a high quality working holder with a wide range of adjustability. The Toishi Dai will hold stones from as short as 3 3/4" long and up to 8 1/2" long (95 - 215mm). All Naniwa Stones can be used in the Naniwa Stone Holder. And many other makes of water stone will fit as well.
Use the Toishi Dai on its own for stable sharpening on any work surface. Or use it in conjunction with the Naniwa Sink Bridge for sharpening directly over a sink.
The Naniwa Stone Holder raises the stone 1 1/4" (32mm) above the work surface. Overall dimensions are 11 5/16" x 3 x 1 3/8" (288mm x 76mm x 36mm).
Naniwa's Flattening Stone
Flattening your water stones is an important process for maintaining them so that they give optimal performance. This 220 grit Naniwa Flattening Stone is designed to work with Naniwa Water Stones but we've found it works well on any water stone.
Soak the flattening stone before use, and soak or wet the water stone as appropriate. Place the water stone on your work surface or hold it in your hand and then rub the Naniwa Flattening Stone over it until the water stone is perfectly flat.
Stone measures 170mm x 55mm x 30mm. If you measure in inches that is roughly 6-11/16" x 2-3/16" x 1-1/8". It is 220 grit, which is excellent for maintaining a wide variety of water stones.
Naniwa's Leather Strop
The new strop from Naniwa is not just another strop. Aside from the quality of the smooth leather and excellent fit and finish, this strop has features not found on other strops.
Cushion Layer
Mounted strops are typically made of a piece of leather attached directly to a backing piece of wood, making them fairly "hard" with little or no give. The Naniwa strop however has a much softer feel. Instead of mounting the leather directly to the wood backing, there is a 2mm thick layer of cushioning between the leather and the wood base, giving it a soft, almost springy action. This makes it perfect if you are a sharpener who likes a bit of give to the strop, especially if you like slightly convex bevels. By varying the amount of pressure used while stropping, you can vary the amount the leather will curve around the bevel.
Non-Slip Bottom
Nothing is more annoying than working with something that won't stay still while you are using it. If you've ever chased a sharpening stone around your work surface while trying to sharpen, you know what we mean. That's not a problem with the Naniwa strop.The bottom of the block is covered in synthetic non-slip pad. You can set the strop down and get to work without worrying about it sliding around while you hone.
Sized Like the Naniwa Stones
The Naniwa Strop is 8 1/4" x 2 3/4" x 7/8" (210mm x 70mm x 24mm), the same length and width as Naniwa's Traditional, Super and Professional stones. Not only is that a practical surface size for stropping, but if you prefer to work on a stone holder like the Naniwa Toishi Dai, it will fit right in. Of course, like we mentioned, the non-skid back means you don't necessarily have to use a holder, but this gives you one more option.
Being the same size as the Naniwa stones also means the the Naniwa Leather Strop will fit in the Naniwa Stone Box and Stand. They fit best in the larger 1 1/8" deep size.
Unsure about how to flatten water stones? See out article How to Flatten a Water Stone.
