Stones... favs?...lineups?

What are the best stones out there (in your opinion)? Best stones for your buck? Best stone lineup? And any favorites for particular grits (or for particular knives). THANKS!:spin chair:

Nah, that is too simple of a question for the topic Really depends on one's taste. You will need to try different ones to see what your preference is. For example I was on and off a bit with soaking stones, but since I finally started to permasoak my Gesshin 400, 2000, 4000 and Bester 220 I started to appreciate them even more - fast stones with good feedback even if not with the smoothest feel. There there are stones like JNS 300, JNS 1000 or Gesshin 320, 1500, 3000 which feel more smoother even if not that brutally fast. Then you have stones like JNS 800 or JNS Red Aoto - softer, make a nice kasumi finish. Then there is Watanabe #1000 stone which is, without a question, the fastest medium grit I have used (the feel is just OK). And then there is a whole zoo of another great stones I hve not used yet.

Matus, how would you compare the speed of Gesshin 2000 to the Watanabe AI 1000?

Best is impossible to determine but if you held a gun to my head and made me choose just a few stones my abridged lineup would be as follows

Bester 400 - no reason, my experience with coarse is limited to it and Naniwa 220 and I just prefer it as it's easier to flatten even if that flattening is more often.

King Hyper 1000 - fast, aggressive, leaves a nice edge and a nice finish

Aizu - the perfect bridging stone

Maruoyama shiro suita - gets you the rest of the way with finishing and sentimentality as it's the first nice jnat I bought

foody518 said:

Matus, how would you compare the speed of Gesshin 2000 to the Watanabe AI 1000?

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Watanabe #1000 is faster then Gesshin 2000 (though the Gesshin is very fast for its grit), the difference in finish is obvious though. Gesshin 2k can be used after 400 stones, the Watanabe even directly after 220. Both are relatively hard. Gesshin feels nicer, but to give a better idea on these two feel I will have to use them side by side what is not possible at the moment as the Watanabe is on loan to a friend and I will only have it back in about a month.

Thanks Matus

Could anyone suggests where I could do some reading on stones, materials they are made from, differences, etc? Looking for a stones 101. Lol

I'm in no way qualified to recommend stones compared to each other, but my 3 favourite so far is my one two punch - akamusa then welsh slate, hair pooping sharp in few minutes, and Mac 1000 that I suspect is actually king deluxe 1000 on carbon knives and cladding

220 Shapton M24
500 shapton glass double thick
1000 naniwa chosera
At this point I have a variety of suita and softer tomae stones that I use and it really depends on which works best with the steel. Different makers use different cladding (I don't have anything honyaki) and they all react differently so I plan accordingly.

ABranson said:

Could anyone suggests where I could do some reading on stones, materials they are made from, differences, etc? Looking for a stones 101. Lol

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http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/wordpress/?p=539

From all the stones I have, Gesshin 2K is my favorite.

OK, my current fav. lineup is Gesshin 400, Gesshin 2000, Gesshin Synthetic natural. I also like JNS 300 very much, it leaves a very uniform scratch pattern, but is not quite as fast as the Gesshin 400. If I would be putting a S&G setup I would build it around Watanabe #1000 stone - probably Gesshib 320 (or JNS 300), Watanabe #1000 and Gesshin Synthetic Natural.

If I were to concentrate on stones for wide bevels I would use Gesshin 400, JNS 800, JNS Red Aoto (synthetic) -or- a softer Ikarashi and then Uchigumori and finally fingerstones.

If I were to add a natural stone for edge sharpening past the Gesshin Synthetic Natural I would just get a nice Ohira Suita. BTW the Ohira suita does a great job as a kasumi finisher too.

If I need a very fast stone I grab the Bester 220 (which not covered with lacquer lost its thirst completely) or Atoma 140 for the really heavy thinning.

One fantastic stone is Gesshin 4000 - just a finer version of the 2000 and would be the right stone to use before Gesshin 8000 (which I do not have). The 4000 leaves a very aggressive edge, very suitable for proteins or stuff like tomatoes.

Not sure if its been said yet but Jon 1/6K diamond stones are hard to beat for speed, edge consistency and can be used on every steel available. They don't dish either so you can create tiny bevels. Their is a learning curve with them however. They remove metal so fast, you'll be holding a petty that started as a gyuto unless your careful. Honestly, the 1K cuts like an aggressive 600. I don't even sharpen on it, just use it to lay down the primary bevel and put some gnarly teeth on the edge.

Below that I'm a huge fan of the Shapton 500 glass stone. Used it to today to thin a Carter Muteki. It Leaves such an even scratch pattern, seems more like 1K

Yeah, those diamonds. I am so tempted by the 800 from Jon, but it must wait until I get some funds.

Best stone for your buck depends a lot on location. For example in the US the Gesshin stones are very popular. However when you're in Europe, they're pretty expensive to import. Vice versa, the Naniwa professional / chosera stones are a lot cheaper in Europe so they're a much more viable option here than they are in the US.

I think another thing to keep in mind is 'best for what'. Some stone types work better with certain steels. Some people prefer a splash & go stone. But there's almost always a tradeoff involved somewhere. So you can't just say 'this is the best stone for everyone'. You have to match the specific trade-off with the desires of the user.

Jovidah said:

Best stone for your buck depends a lot on location. For example in the US the Gesshin stones are very popular. However when you're in Europe, they're pretty expensive to import. Vice versa, the Naniwa professional / chosera stones are a lot cheaper in Europe so they're a much more viable option here than they are in the US.

I think another thing to keep in mind is 'best for what'. Some stone types work better with certain steels. Some people prefer a splash & go stone. But there's almost always a tradeoff involved somewhere. So you can't just say 'this is the best stone for everyone'. You have to match the specific trade-off with the desires of the user.

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Jo, interesting POV, but the OP didn't restrict choices based on price. I've had pass through my hands lots of synthetics. For the steels I currently have it's hard to beat Jon's [emoji184]. Jon said to me that sharpening with
them is like cheating.

Well he also said 'best bang for the buck' and that's what I was responding to. I have no doubts the Gesshins are awesome stones, but over here they tend to cost a lot more buck than over there.

For example, the Gesshin 2000 is 95 dollars. Getting it over here costs an estimated 37,54 dollars. Then you have to pay customs, which is calculated based on price of item and shipping. By the time that's done you're looking at an estimated cost of 167 euros... which at current conversion rates works out to almost 180 dollars. The price of the stone has almost doubled.

That's literally the exact same amount of money an entire set of Naniwa professional 400,1000 & 3000 costs here (167,40 euros). Interestingly that same set of Naniwa's in the US costs not 180, but 270 dollars.

Not knocking Jon's prices here (he can't do anything about assinine shipping or customs costs), just saying it might factor in the recommendations or calculations depending on location. Unless money is a complete non-issue. Look, I love Jon and would love to give him my patronage. But unless you're swimming in money all the extra costs make it a rather prohibitive matter for Europeans. In the same vein, Naniwa's are a good choice here in Europe while I would never recommend them for the steep prices you're paying for them in the US.

Just wanted to point out a bias that might factor in people's recommendations and advice.

Jovidah said:

Best stone for your buck depends a lot on location. For example in the US the Gesshin stones are very popular. However when you're in Europe, they're pretty expensive to import. Vice versa, the Naniwa professional / chosera stones are a lot cheaper in Europe so they're a much more viable option here than they are in the US.

I think another thing to keep in mind is 'best for what'. Some stone types work better with certain steels. Some people prefer a splash & go stone. But there's almost always a tradeoff involved somewhere. So you can't just say 'this is the best stone for everyone'. You have to match the specific trade-off with the desires of the user.

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What do you think the tradeoffs are for splash and go vs a soak stone? like is there less quality in a splash and go? and do you have reccommendations for certain stones dependent on harder steel vs softer steel?

I'm no expert on this... but in my limited experience (having some magnesia, 1 resinoid, but only had cheap soaking stones).

Well first off...there are different types of splash & go stones: magnesia-based and resinoid based.
The magnesia based have as a major achilles heel that during long exposure to water, the binder tends to dissolve. So it's ill-advised to soak them for longer times (don't even think about permasoaking). Quite some people have had these stones break on them, largely because of issues with the binder and oversoaking.
At the same time, magnesia stones often do benefit from at least a short soak..so they can be a bit... troublesome? You kind of don't want to soak them yet it's better if you do.

Resinoid doesn't suffer from these problems, but still, with all (even resinoid) S&G stones the issue is that they can be a bit a bit fragile while drying. So you don't want them to dry too fast, etc. etc. or they might crack. But at least some resinoid stones have the ability to perma-soak...but that defeats the whole purpose of having a S&G stone. Magnesia stones (Shapton, Naniwa Pro) do tend to be quite fast though - often faster than resinoid.

A lot of people claim they prefer the feel and feedback of the soak-stones, but this is a very personal preference. Personally (I have S&G stones) I feel like I gain the ability to just 'hit the stones' when I need, at the cost of having to baby my stones a bit more. For me that was a decent trade-off as I didn't really have a good way to permasoak stones. My experience was that if I had to soak the stones for half an hour before starting it would lead me to not sharpen as much as I would want. Your mileage (and personality!) may certainly vary.

I'm pretty sure there are at least some posts floating around from JBroida who explained it a lot better and in a lot more detail than I did. Maybe some other members have different experiences as well.

Regarding harder vs softer steel. Something to keep in mind is that it's not just about the hardness of the steel, but also the toughness. That's one of the reasons why stainless (especially soft) can be so much more bothersome to sharpen.
Toolsfromjapan has a few nice posts on their weblog where they do an indepth comparison test of waterstones and this is one thing they touch upon.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while the matrix of the steel might have a certain hardness, it can contain carbides of much greater hardness. Think of steel (especially alloyed steel) not as a homogenous mass but more like a cookie dough. That's one of the issue with for example the vanadium carbides in VG-10 (and some other steels); many stones cannot abrade it directly, so they just abrade the stuff around it until the carbide pops out.
That's one of the big advantage of diamond stones: they're hard enough to abrade anything. But they don't come cheap.

Personally my experiences are too limited (not enough comparison material) to really recommend one line of stones over any other.

I started with fairly feedback friendly, relatively friable soaking stones and got my butt kicked for a while when learning to use my first S&G (Chosera 2k). Was faceting bevels and rounding edges that I hadn't been before since there wasn't as much slurry to help smooth things over and there wasn't the same kind of feedback I was used to. Helped to kick up some slurry with a diamond plate.
That said, these days I quite like denser near-S&G coarse stones like the Sigma Power 400 and Naniwa Pro 400 for setting crisp bevels quickly. And I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between preferring soakers vs S&G overall

I would only add that convenience-wise the worst solution is to use soaking stones, but not permasoak them. These will in average climate (say 50% humidity and around 20 - 20 deg. Celsius) take several days to dry + they need 15 - 30 minutes to fully soak. Most S&G stones dry within 24 hours, some considerably faster (JNS300 for example, but I have the impression that the Gesshin 320, 1500 and 3000 fall in the same category - none of these stones should be soaked). My wife always complained when I left all the stones on the counter for several days (to dry). Now I permasoak them so I can take them out, use them (even if just for few minutes), pop them back in water (a large plastic container with a sealed lid) and stash them away. Works like a charm

So do people think that, should one have a place to store them, that permasoak stones are probably the most convenient (taking into account the 'troublesome factors' one might find with S&G stones).

Matus said:

I would only add that convenience-wise the worst solution is to use soaking stones, but not permasoak them. These will in average climate (say 50% humidity and around 20 - 20 deg. Celsius) take several days to dry + they need 15 - 30 minutes to fully soak. Most S&G stones dry within 24 hours, some considerably faster (JNS300 for example, but I have the impression that the Gesshin 320, 1500 and 3000 fall in the same category - none of these stones should be soaked). My wife always complained when I left all the stones on the counter for several days (to dry). Now I permasoak them so I can take them out, use them (even if just for few minutes), pop them back in water (a large plastic container with a sealed lid) and stash them away. Works like a charm

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My bar has been converted into a stone shelf and by that I mean that my stones all sit in a row on the bar. Well, not the whole bar, I keep my egg baskets on the other half. No complaints from my wife. Then again I did just set her up an espresso bar with micro shrimp tank so that keeps her off my case.

One can soak most of S&G stones (apart from those magnesia ones). What one should rather not do is to soak the S&G stones and let them dry after each sessions. I did that with my Gesshin 6000 and it developed hairline cracks over time. I did that because I was soaking two another Gesshin stones and so I added the Gesshin 6000. But you should not consider the S&G stones to be more 'troublesome'. Just handle them the way intended. The same is truth for soaking stones.

If you live in Europe you may get the Naniwa Pro series at reasonable prices. I would suggest 400, 800 and 3k, corresponding to JIS 500, 1200 and 4k in the end result. The 2k is great for deburring simple stainless.

I don't know who it was, but a while back someone suggested storing soaking stones in the water tank of the toilet. You already have water there anyway, and it gets refreshed all the time so no issues with algae or other biological growths. Never tried it (as I have S&G stones) but it sounded pretty brilliant to me!

I'm gonna agree with MB and go Jon's 1k/6k combo.... yes they are pricey (heck mine set me back over $500 AUD). But bang for your buck they are almost impossible to beat. Will cut any steel easily (even soft stuff) minimal if any dishing, unless you are belting Jon level sharpening and even then he says they last him ages.

So yes they cost a bit but they will out live cheaper stones by many factors more than the price difference... and they leave a magnificent edge....

I follow mine up with some light strops on arashiyama and it is magic. But straight off the 6k os awesome too.. combined bite and polish is great for general kitchen use.

There seem to be a lot of Gesshin fans and JNS fans... would people mind giving their opinion of why they prefer these if that is the case in regards to other stones?

Because the JNS stones are really great and it makes me feel like a local patriot when supporting Maxim who sells them.
Buying from JKI would also be a lot more expensive even though I'm sure the Gesshins are nice as well.
But most of all because they are awesome stones that work better than my other stones.

Lars

The Gesshin stones I've used (mostly the soakers not the S&G) tend to offer more desirable traits with fewer tradeoffs (or tradeoffs to a lesser degree) compared to others I have: some Imanishi/Bester, Naniwa, Suehiro, King, Sigma Power. The Sigmas as a whole might be my current 2nd favorite overall brand in synthetics, but lose out in cutting speed
-Pretty good feedback
-More cutting action per stone expenditure
-The ones I've used have been pretty dang fast in general. The 2k and 4k soakers are ridiculous for their grit range.
-Some mud/slurry generation (as opposed to just swarf skating on a nonresponsive surface), which I like

Under what conditions would they be a suboptimal choice - if you sharpen in a way that it takes X amount of strokes to find your angle and get going, or get into a habit with feeling like sharpening takes X number of strokes or X amount of time, there will be more than necessary metal removal and overuse of these stones.

You get what you pay for with these