New stones!

I ordered up a Beston 1200 and Rika 5K that should be here end of this week or early next week. I went to a local WoodCraft store and picked up one of the Chinese Polishing Stones, 12K, among a bunch of other stuff. I finally got to play with the stone today on a few knives, both carbon and stainless.

I compared it to my 3000/8000 Henkels synthetic water stone. The 8000 Henkels gets the edge much brighter (more polished) and makes mud much easier. I soaked the Cnat12K for a while, over 30 minutes and then kept adding water as I sharpened. It took a long time to build up any slurry; next time I am taking a diamond plate to it to get a slurry going! I found I could put a lot of pressure on it and it sharpened quicker. It left fine scratches compared to the 8000 grit, but again, I didn't have much of a slurry. What I did notice is that after I pulled the wire edge off with a hard felt block, the edge, while not as polished, was better at slicing and push cutting than the 8000 Henkels, even in paper towels. The edges felt sharper and different than the 8000 Henkels; maybe the edges were truer since the stone is so hard where the Henkels 8K is a bit softer and may have rounded the edge more? It felt different and much harder than my Shapton Pro 2K, but put a very nice aggressive edge onto the knives. I know this is a love it or hate it stone, but I had a lot of fun with it trying a variety of blades, from VG10, to some carbon Green River knives, to a Hon Kasumi Deba, Tojiro DP Honesuki, Kikuichi Elite Carbon and some damascus hunting knives.

Now I can't wait for the other 2 stones to arrive!!

You might want to try a Nagura stone with that Cnat!

Yeah, but I can't find any of the ones I had!! I saw some people recommended using a diamond stone as a nagura since the stone was so hard, so I will try that next time. I gotta order a Nagura and some of Daves finger stones, too.

Definitely flatten that cnat prior to use as well. Mine wasn't worth a damn until I flattened her out and took a layer off the top. I always work up a slurry with a diamond plate prior to use as well.

Yeah, I noticed it wasn't really flat. Gonna soak it for a while when I wake up tomorrow, flatten it and make a slurry and play with it tomorrow hopefully. Hoping the other two stones come soon, too!

I've got an un-identified j-nat that is extremely hard and doesn't cut particularly well without a slurry. With the slurry it leaves a nice misty finish and a great edge.

I just got done playing with the Cnat again. 30 min soak, slurry with my diamond plate and my Nakiri got a nice shiny edge to it. Same with a carbon Green River boning knife. The Tojiro DP honesuki got more polished than the last attempt, but was more hazy on the stainless steel. No biggie, I like carbon better anyway!

I got the Beston 1200 and Rika 5K in a couple days ago, but didn't have time to play with them until today. I started off with the Beston 1200 and broke it in on some knives. I wanted to rebevel my Kikuichi to more of a 50/50; it was around 75/25 and now it's more like 60/40, so I have a bit more to go. The 1200 cut pretty quickly and felt great. Then I went to the Rika 5K, nice stone, got nice and muddy and gave a wickedly aggressive edge to the SK-4 steel. Then I decided to use the CNat12K. Got the slurry with the diamond plate and now that sucker is just absolutely wicked! The edge isn't as polished as the 8K finish, but it seems a bit more refined. I could tell when the burr was flipped and I could feel how the edge was progressing. Never felt that before! I sharpened up a D2 small hunter/utility knife, using the same progression. Again, stupidly sharp. Last I broke out one of the VG-10 damascus blades I got from Jantz and built up as a petty. Same progression. The 1200 was now broken in, had a good slurry going and it cut great!! Got a nice burr, was able to flip it easily and went to the 5K. It gave that blade such an aggressive edge, I was debating going to the 12K CNat. I decided to go up and polished the edge a bit more. I lost most of the aggressive toothyness, but it refined it a touch more.

I gotta say I love these new stones, so thank you guys for all of the great reviews of them that led me to buy the Beston 1200 and Rika 5K!!!! I've also started using a hard felt block between grits to remove the burr and that has helped immensely, too. I've gotten lots of great tips from the board!

Congrats on your new toys! Isn't using good tools and learning new methods great?

Yeah, the felt block was pretty cool and the Rika 5K put a sick edge on stuff. I may just use that as my end stone since I like the bitey aggressive edges.