Sharpening stones descriptions

Hi everybody.

Before I start writing please note that English is not my first language and hopefully you will understand me and forgive me my grammar.

We are talking a lot about kitchen knives and other stuff but we do not describe our sharpening gear. People are asking ''which stones should I choose?'' more often now. I created this thread on Polish knife forums and this is it's translation. It was created because I hoped that anybody who will find 5 minutes will share his thoughts about stones. I don't mind if descriptions will duplicate. It'll be even better because we will have better view on stones. Also I don't want to make it in laboratory conditions. It's more important what do you guys think about your sharpening gear.
I thought that this set of criteria will be fine and one will fill them in his own words. You don't have to stick to them if you don't want.

A. Dimensions (lenght x width x thickness)
B. Where did you buy stone and it's price
C. Soaking time
D. Speed of flattening and stone repair
E. Sharpening speed
F. Aggression
G. Feedback
H. Hardness, mud creation.
I.Picture of finish if possible.
After that just write few words about specific stone. It is obvious that people will share their own thoughts but this will give us idea about specific stone.

​

List of described stones.

Atoma 140
DMT Extra Coarse
JNS 300
Beston 500
JNS 1000
JNS 6000
Shapton PRO 8000
White Binsui
Red Aoto
My Japanese natural mystery stone.
Oohira Tomae lv4


I will start from very aggressive diamond plates through synthetic stones and will finish with J-nat's. When I'll be on J-nats I will finish my knives on JNS 1000 and will make a full progression of naturals so you will know what finish you can achieve. I would like to point out that I will not try to achieve best finish possible. It depends on skills, time, stone itself, removal of scratches from previous stone etc.
I will take pictures with my mobile and to take close-up pictures I will use this magnifying glass which cost about 3 British Pounds.


I just put them together and tried to take nice picture. Picture quality depends on camera itself, light, skills (I don't have any of these) so I will try to take best shoots possible with my gear. Please note that sometimes pictures may lie and in real it can look little bit different. For example when I was taking close-up shoots light could fall from different side and on picture it looked like there was micro bevel on the edge.
Also please note that taking picture of cutting edge after high grit stones was even more difficult.
You can see all pictures from this thread in this album. You can zoom them.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1051...62593407873?banner=pwa&authkey=CLaxk_yUzdy1Yg

It's always stone, Deba, damascus blade is Inazuma and plane steel is O1 steel.

For my test I will use 3 knives. Inazuma In-1 150mm petty, knife which I made out of O1 steel 60-61 HRC and Itinomonn deba.
I choosed Inazuma because some people on Polish forums own that knife. My knife is a random carbon and I wanted to show you stone finish on Deba bevel.



Before I started I have presoaked all stones and lapped them with Atoma 140.

Please note that all descriptions made by me are my own thoughts and feelings. If there is someone who think differently please feel free to write his own description.

Atoma 140


A. 21.2cm x 7.5cm x 1.1cm
B. www.japanesenaturalstones.com price £109.31
C. soaking time - none
D. Stone repair speed - you can get redeemable diamond plate for this one.
E. Sharpening speed.
Inazuma - very fast
O1 - very fast (much faster than Inazuma)
Deba - fast
F. Aggression - very aggressive on all knives
G. Feedback - It's very horrible.
H. Hardness - Obviously it's super hard

Finish:

Inazuma

O1

Itinomonn

I bought Atoma some time ago mainly for knife repairs. Diamonds on that plate are very aggressive and at the begining were annoying (feedback). After some time diamonds has worn and feeling changed as well. To be honest I don't like Atoma for repairs. It cuts but with very horrible feedback. I have noticed (when I was using sand paper) that low grit is not that good and it is better to use a little bit higher grit. I think that it is same with Diamond plates. Atoma 140 is a great plate for stone flattening. It cuts very quickly and thanks to diamonds location it doesn't stick to the stones.

DMT Extra coarse

A. 20.5cm x 7.8cm x 9.2mm
B. Shop and price - I think that I bought that on Ebay. I don't remember price
C. Soak time - none
D. Stone repair speed - Impossible to repair.
E. Sharpening time -
Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba

I had to abandon some criteria above because I don't remember. DMT XC was one of my oldest stones . Unfortunately DMT has worn very very quickly and now it's slick and almost not cutting. Diamond plate should work for you for years if used for small repairs and stone flattening but I remember that I only learn how to sharpen on Spyderco Military, flattened few stones and maybe used it on few other knives. That's it.

JNS 300

A. 210mm x 70mm x 25mm
B. www.japanesenaturalstones.com £55.70
C. Soaking time - none. It's splash 'n'go stone.
D. Flattening and repair time - very quick
E. Sharpening speed -
Inazuma - medium
O1 - fast
Deba - Fast
F. Aggression -
Inazuma - medium
O1 - aggressive
Deba - aggressive
G. Feedback
Inazuma - medium
O1 - good
Deba - good
H. Hardness, mud creation - This stone is very soft and creates LOADS of mud.

Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba



I got JNS 300 as a gift from Maxim on previous JNS gathering. It is a good stone for small repairs when you need to quickly remove some steel and you don't want to use aggressive diamonds. It's cons is fact that it is wearing very quick and make a lot of mess. Because it's softness it makes a nice contrast between jigane and hagane but who need it in low grit? Pros of that stone is that it's splash 'n' go.

Beston 500

A. 200mm x 70mm x 25mm
B. Shop and price - JNS £58.15
C. Soaking time - minimum 30 minutes
D. Flattening and repair time - medium (it's worse when Beston is congested)
E. Sharpening speed
Inazuma - medium
O1 - very fast
Deba - Between medium and fast
F. Aggression
Inazuma - mild
O1 - medium
Deba - medium
G. Feedback
Inazuma - medium
O1 - medium
Deba - medium
H. Hardness - medium/hard - doesn't create mud

Finish

Inazuma

O1


Deba


I am using Beston 500 to cut new bevels. If knife is properly thinned out then I could do that with good 1000 grit stone but I have noticed that without Beston 500 my edges are missing something. I like this stone. Beston 500 cons is fact that it is a sponge and you must soak it for minimum 30 minutes.
When I was sharpening Inazuma I thought that I will not finish. Maybe it's my technique but I think that Inazuma doesn't belong to knives which sharpen easily. Even Beston 500 doesnt't make it better. When I was sharpening my O1 knife swarf showed very quickly on stone surface. When I sharpened Itinomonn, a lot of swarf showed very quickly but stone blocked quickly as well. Then I had a feeling of slippery. Beston is wearing very slowly whish is a big ''plus''. It's minus is that it is clogging very quickly.

JNS 1000

A. 200mm x 75mm x 30mm
B. Shop and price - JNS £62.61
C. Soaking time - minimum 10 minutes. Can be in water all time.
D. Flattening/repairing time - fast
E. Sharpening speed -
Inazuma - fast
O1 - fast
Deba - fast
F. Aggression - aggressive on all knives.
G. Feedback - Good on all knives. When sharpening deba I felt some slippery.
H. Hardness - very hard, doesn't create mud only swarf.

Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba



What can I say about JNS 1000? This is my favourite stone. It's aggressive, If you are stubborn you can use it to cut new bevels. It is very important that this stone is wearing very slow. I have it since a year now , it's most often used stone by me, I am cleaning it often as well with diamond plate and now it 29.54mm thick. It means that I didn't grind it a lot. Honestly I can recommend it to anybody who want to have only one stone. I can use only this stone and leather and can have shaving arm, home kitchen edge.


JNS 6000 Matukusuyama

A. 210mm x 75mm x 25mm
B. shop and price - JNS £88.21
C. Soaking time - in theory it's splash 'n' go but you have to put it in to water for minimum 10 minutes.
D. Flattening/repair speed - Fast. When flattening with Diamond plate one is creating a lot of pink mud which can be used for polishing.
E. Sharpening speed:
Inazuma - medium
O1 - fast
Deba - very fast
F. Aggression - Aggressive on all knives.
G. Feedback
Inazuma - medium
O1 - good
Deba - very good
H. Hardness/mud creation - Very hard, doesn't create mud only swarf.

Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba


JNS 6000 Matukusuyama is another gift from Maxim. My stone is a stone which Maxim used every day. It wears very slowly. I have never used that stone before because I don't need 6k edge on my knives. It is definitely very fast stone. Just after few passes you can see black swarf on surface. It cut's very fast. I was not aware about it before but it is good for preparing knife to kasumi. Maxim recommend to use that stone before any J-nat finisher. Now I know why. After JNS 6k you can see very nice contrast between jigane and hagane. I was very surprised by that.

Shapton PRO 8000


A. 210mm x 71mm 14mm
B. Shop/price - Ebay, I don't remember price
C. Soaking time - none, you shouldn't soak this stone.
D. Flattening speed - fast
E. Sharpening speed -
Inazuma - fast
O1 - fast
Deba - fast
F. Aggression - Medium on all knives.
G. Feedback -
Inazuma - not nice
O1 - medium
Deba - good
H. Hardness - Very hard, doesn't create mud.

Finish

Inazuma


O1

Deba




Shapton Pro 8000 is a stone which I got from my girlfriend as a gift. It was about 2 years ago when I thought that I need high grit stone to get sharper knife but the point is that then I lacked of skills. Now I am not using it at all except situations when it is somewhere near and I have to do uraoshi sharpening. This stones have horrible feeling. It is not slick or rough. I felt that my knife made small jumps on the stone. It was better with deba. It was strange feeling like knife was glued to stone surface but was slicky in the same time. It cuts quite fast. It is scratching jigane very badly. 


White Binsui


A. 200mm x 63mm x x38mm
B. Shop/price - JNS. I don't remember price.
C. Soaking time - none
D. Flattening time - Fast
E. Sharpening time
Inazuma - slow
O1 - slow
Deba - medium
F. Aggression - mild on all knives
G. Feedback -
Inazuma - very good
O1 - medium
Deba - mediu,
H. Hardness/mud creation - Very hard, it creates infinitesimal amount of slurry.
Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba



White Binsui is my first Japanese natural. On http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/ you can read that it is 1000 - 2000 grit stone with great feedback. My Binsui is very different. Binsui cannot stand alone. It is last stone which is used for sword polishing and can change shape of the blade. It is working perfectly with JNS 1000. First you are sharpening on 1k and then you can finish on white binsui. One will get very aggressive yet refined edge. It works best with nagura because it cannot produce a lot of mud itself. It is my favourite stone to start kasumi finish. It is sharpening very slowly but put single bevel with 1k scratches on white binsui and you will remove those scratched in just seconds. Also one will get beautiful contrast between jigane and hagane. If somebody want to play with kasumi then he can use diamond plate to create mud from White Binsui and then use felt or cork to polish the knife. Effect will be more than satysfying.

Red Aoto

A.210mm x 81mm x 34mm
B.Shop/price - JNS £97.39
C.Soaking time - short
D.Repairing/flattening speed - ''TRAGEDY!!!!''
E. Sharpening speed
Inazuma - medium
O1 - medium
Deba - medium
F. Aggression - Medium on all knife
G. Feedback - very good on all knives
H. Hardness/mud creation - Very soft. It creates a lot of mud.

Finish.

Inazuma

O1

Deba



Red Aoto is one of my favourite stones. In theory you should soak it for a few minutes (it cannot be stored in water for longer period of time) but sometimes I just spray it with water and I am ready to go.When I got aoto for the first time I wasn't happy with it. One must learn how to use the mud. Red aoto is between 2-3k grit but you can take it higher, it depend on stone itself. I am using it for quick touch ups. My aoto is scratching jigane a bit but I had a chance to use different stone in JNS store and it was different.

Mystery J-nat stone


A. 178mm x 58mm (in widest part) x 15mm
B. shop/price - Ebay (330 _mate.com), price betweem £20-£30.
C. Soaking time - none
D. Flattening speed - fast
E. Sharpening speed -
Inazuma - fast
O1 - very fast
Deba - very fast
F. Aggression - medium on all knives.
G. Feedback - It is super on all knives.
H. Hardness, mud creation - It is very hard to say. Seems to be hard but creates a lot of mud.
Finish

Inazuma

O1


Itinomonn




I bought that stone from 330_mate.com on ebay. To be honest I bought a pig in a poke because I paid for stone but I couldn't choose which one. I didn't use it for a long time but once somebody asked me to sharpen yanagiba and I decided to try this stone. Effects were very satisfying.

Look on pictures of my Suisin Densyo.

JNS scratches and White Binsui scratches:

After polishing on mystery stone:

After mystery stone fingerstone:

And after that I ground few pieces of mystery stone fingerstones and uchimogori in mortar and used it to polish yanagiba.

Look on results:


Not bad as for stone which cost £20
But unfortunately I will give 330_mate.com a big minus because first of all it is very hard to communicate with him and secondly he lied to me about that stone. When I asked him about details of this stone he gave me wrong information. He told me that strata is central Tomae and it is Mid age mine Nakayama Akapin Nashiji red! Hardness is class 4. Also he added that this is best stone for hard knives and that I am lucky. It is very confussing because Tomae Strata and Akapin are two different stratas and this is very soft stone from what I have noticed.
This stone have the best feedback of all my stones. It feels slippery but also you can feel that steel is being removed and you can hear very specific whizz. It is hard to describe but using that stone is pure pleasure. I've noticed that finish depends on knife itself. When I sharpened my deba I got some scratches. In case of my Suisin Densyo which I showed you before finish was perfect. I

Oohira Tomae lv4


A. 206mm x 80mm x 33mm
B. Shop/price - JNS, £166.95
C. Soaking time - none
D. Flattening/ repair time - fast
E. Sharpening speed - Slow on all knives
F. Aggression - medium
G.Feedback
Inazuma - very good (feeling of roughness)
O1 - medium ( you can feel how hard it is)
Deba - medium
H. Hardness/mud creation - Very hard (my hardest stone), infinitesimal amount of mud.

Finish

Inazuma

O1

Deba




I bought Oohira from Maxim only because I wanted another stone. It is very hard one. It is a finisher for knives and razors. For me it is too much. I am using it only to make uraoshi sharpening on single bevels. Finish depend on specific knife.

That's it for now. In the very near future I will describe JNS 800, Ebisu and small Hakka which I brought from JNS gathering 2014.