How high do you go?

I'm staring at my 12k Naniwa, and it keeps me up some nights wondering if I should put my kitchen knives to it like my straight razors. I did it once and had questionable results.

So how high in grit so some of you go? 4k? 6k? 12k? 16K? 30k? And for some of your JNAT users out there, Lv. 3, 4, 5?

About 8k anything past that is pointless as the edge is pretty much gone if you hit the board. I find that after 8k the point of diminishing returns is exponential.

8k. Almost all of my sharpening is a 1k Chosera followed by an 8k Gesshin.

Depends on the knife. Gyutos and nakiris I stop at a Gesshin 4K. Sujis, pettys, and parring knives I finish with an 8K kitayama. They all get stropped on balsa loaded with the green stuff. I'm thinking about going back to stropping on news paper though.

Be well,
Mikey

so it wasn't in my head that it felt questionable that one time I took it to my 12K Naniwa stone

I'm similar to mkriggen. Generally speaking, 4k to 8k for J-knives, 1k to 2k for Euro. Bare horse butt to finish all.

Usually 5k, maximum 8k.

I've been jumping from 800 to 4k to 8k, and have been gradually reducing my use of 8k. High polish means having to be extra careful to avoid imparting convexity to the edge. It can be done, but I think 4-6k is more forgiving and maintains a nice bite for a little longer.

I'd just like to share my experience in building wooden boats. I just got my Naniwa 12k and finished all my chisels on it. HHT3-HHT4 no problem with a 5minute sharpening at 25 degrees. Also it will cut oak crossgrain without a mallet etc. I'm fairly sure this sharpness is because of the high polish and the chisels stay sharp for days so I'm thinking the edge without any serrations might be very hard.
So next time I'll try the 12k on my kitchen knives!

5k on most knives. Yanagiba to 12k.

1k-3k on cheap stainless / boning / skinning knives. 5k on most of my carbon knives.

I haven't been going past 2k at all for awhile. When I do I stop at red aoto. Strop on paper or cardboard.

I take knives 60+ to either 6k Arashiyama or a pre polisher natural. Cheap stainless to 2k green brick.

After the Choseras 800 and 2k, only stropping and deburring on 5k and Naniwa 8k Snow-White. With hard stainless (VG-10, Gin-3) no stropping on the highest stones though, only deburring.

I go to a minimum of 8K.
On single bevels I'll go to 20 or 30K, or some JNats for razors.

I find that not only are there diminishing returned after about 5K-8K, the performance on the food that I cook diminishes by the time I hit 10K or 12K. Once in a while I'll take a knife to 12K just to play with it and the improvement in cutting paper and shaving hair is noticeable. However, I really try to not get hair or paper in my food. On the flip side, taking a knife back to 5K or 8K with just a couple of light strokes after going to 10K or 12K leaves an very good edge for the tasks I do in the kitchen, but I usually don't take the time to go all the way up and then back down. I don't have any single bevels, I'd probably take a yanagi to 12K if I owned one. On soft stainless knives, I go no higher than 2K.

Most knives 2K, at most 4K. Single bevels 8K

I find 6k more than enough. I might stop at 4k if I had such a stone. Since my next one is 2k which leaves edge too toothy for my liking, so I always go for the 6k.

2-5k is really the sweet spot. I don't see much purpose in going crazy. All great edges will fold at sometime.

For synthetics, 3000-6000, depending on knife, steel, and which stone I want to play with that day. I usually finish on naturals though, so that's a different story.

For synthetics, 3000-6000, depending on knife, steel, and which stone I want to play with that day. I usually finish on naturals though, so that's a different story.

bowl + lighter

That's the natural progression I use to take the edge off.