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!!
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!!