A Paean to the Cerax / Ouka 3k

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cotedupy

cotedupy

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The very first (water) stone I got was just dreamy, but I was never quite sure exactly what it was:

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A bit of internet research, and some probable-but-not-100% confirmations from experts here led me into believing it was a Suehiro Cerax Combi. But whatever it was, it was excellent.

Eventually I'd grow to love the King 1200 just a little more than its 1k side, but the 3k part of it... oh my! Just a perfect stone; incredibly easy to use, good for polishing, muddy but not overly so, quick but not brutish, keen but bite-y. It sat square in the middle of every Aristotelian Golden Mean you could think of. And when it dished, it did so... elegantly... still sharpening perfectly right up until the point at which, with a few passes on a diamond plate, it would revert to nascent flatness with the minimum of fuss.

Over time neophilia led me to purchase and try various alternatives, but none of them would ever steal my heart away from the little yellow combi (though by now she grew frail and thin). Always there for me when I needed that ideal edge quickly. Always ready to help when I'd f***ed up an experiment going from 800 grit to a translucent ark. And so it was with some trepidation that a few weeks ago I gave it away to a friend who didn't have a stone for her own knives, and ordered myself a new Cerax 3k.

But when I received it today, the alarm bells rang...

IMG-1928.jpg


Of course the stone was new for me - I'd just unwrapped it. But why was it new for them? How on earth had they possibly improved it?! I hoped to god this wasn't going to be like the last time someone served me their 'interpretation of a Negroni'. Please, please, please... Do Not F*** With The Classics.

But thankfully whoever is in charge of innovation at Suehiro is either admirably lazy, or recognises well a winning formula. With the first stroke I could tell that the stone was still perfect in every conceivable way.

Having it back in my permasoak bucket feels like having Batman on speed dial.

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Really well written. It sounds a bit like a deep love affair, that may seem strange to one or the other reader, but I can understand that very well myself.
 
Ouka is a tremendously good stone. SG500-Ouka is one of the best progression for any decent steel in the kitchen. Cerax 320-Ouka is probably the easiest progression for a working kasumi from coarse scratches. Ouka is excellent for touch ups. It's a fast stone that won't clog easily, and a difficult one to pin with the caveats of its lot because - @cotedupy said it best - of its elegance with dispatching them. 😍
 
M1k3 said:
OP is in Australia so definitely go for the free shipping! Can't believe how much USPS charges to ship to there.
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Weird isn't it! I send stuff to the US quite often and it seems to cost me a small fraction of what USPS would to send the same thing back (like 1/5th the price).
 
ModRQC said:
Ouka is a tremendously good stone. SG500-Ouka is one of the best progression for any decent steel in the kitchen. Cerax 320-Ouka is probably the easiest progression for a working kasumi from coarse scratches. Ouka is excellent for touch ups. It's a fast stone that won't clog easily, and a difficult one to pin with the caveats of its lot because - @cotedupy said it best - of its elegance with dispatching them. 😍
Click to expand...

Good to hear it gets the love from the experts too!

For a while I felt like I was clearly missing something, or not sharpening properly... as stone after stone I tried at a similar grit just wasn't as good as my tatty old combi. Which came in an unmarked cardboard box, and I bought because it was the only stone in the shop. It was only after I gave up trying to find others as good, that I found out I'd got lucky and it was a Cerax. And you've pointed out another of my favourite things, which I forgot to mention: it simply doesn't ever clog :).

Good to know about the Cerax 320 too; I've got a great coarse stone for removing material, but have been thinking about getting a posher one for beginning kasumi &c. Other I was thinking about was the King 300, don't know if you have any thoughts/experience on how they'd compare...?
 
Great stuff @cotedupy - beautifully written and utterly convincing. I certainly don’t need another mid-grit stone, but I can’t help but be tempted by that paean to the Ouka. Want.

A sense of increasing guttedness is also dawning on me. It seems we lived literally around the corner from each other for years, paths likely crossing more than a few times, I never got a chance to enslave you as my talented knife wallah build a friendship and learn from your skills. Stockwell would have been fine, but you had to move to bloody Australia! Let that be a lesson to lazy International lurkers I guess - don’t airily assume that KKF is a place solely for knife nutters in North America, for it is for blade-obsessed weirdo real people everwhere, Probably needs work as a slogan tbh

Still, I wasn‘t half as lucky with my first whetstones as you. This was the pre You-Tube tutorial era and I started off with a horrible Minosharp 220 and a cheap combo stone, likely one of those narrow King things working back (this was 25+ years ago)!) The Minosharp was horrible even for a low-grit stone - an experience somewhat akin to painfully dragging your knife on a glass and smeg-encrusted slab of paving stone in a pub beer garden. And the King was a narrow strip of slow-working softness that seemed to do next to nothing. I fully admit that I aborted my early sharpening attempts more than a few times, squinting forlornly at the A4 instructions (with dubious line drawings) in the whetstone box and lacking confidence that I was doing the right thing. In hindsight, I know now that the Globals that I had then are a pig to sharpen/deburr, and that the R2 and other Powder steel blades I subsequently moved to were a bad match for those stones.

Salvation for me came in the form of a Chosera 2k many years later. This thing Immediately felt different, creamy and smooth, even the sound seemed to make me feel in tune with what I was trying to do . And it worked despite me using basically the same crummy technique as those early, abortIve attempts, the blade actually becoming sharp. Cogs clicked, pennies dropped, it all suddenly began to make sense,

I‘m still no great sharpener, but I can totally understand that loyalty towards your first stone love

👍
 
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WiriWiri said:
Great stuff @cotedupy - beautifully written and utterly convincing. I certainly don’t need another mid-grit stone, but I can’t help but be tempted by that paean to the Ouka. Want.

A sense of increasing guttedness is also dawning on me. It seems we lived literally around the corner from each other for years, paths likely crossing more than a few times, I never got a chance to enslave you as my talented knife wallah build a friendship and learn from your skills. Stockwell would have been fine, but you had to move to bloody Australia! Let that be a lesson to lazy International lurkers I guess - don’t airily assume that KKF is a place solely for knife nutters in North America, for it is for blade-obsessed weirdo real people everwhere, Probably needs work as a slogan tbh

Still, I wasn‘t half as lucky with my first whetstones as you. This was the pre You-Tube tutorial era and I started off with a horrible Minosharp 220 and a cheap combo stone, likely one of those narrow King things working back (this was 25+ years ago)!) The Minosharp was horrible even for a low-grit stone - an experience somewhat akin to painfully dragging your knife on a glass and smeg-encrusted slab of paving stone in a pub beer garden. And the King was a narrow strip of slow-working softness that seemed to do next to nothing. I fully admit that I aborted my early sharpening attempts more than a few times, squinting forlornly at the A4 instructions (with dubious line drawings) in the whetstone box and lacking confidence that I was doing the right thing. In hindsight, I know now that the Globals that I had then are a pig to sharpen/deburr, and that the R2 and other Powder steel blades I subsequently moved to were a bad match for those stones.

Salvation for me came in the form of a Chosera 2k many years later. This thing Immediately felt different, creamy and smooth, even the sound seemed to make me feel in tune with what I was trying to do . And it worked despite me using basically the same crummy technique as those early, abortIve attempts, the blade actually becoming sharp. Cogs clicked, pennies dropped, it all suddenly began to make sense,

I‘m still no great sharpener, but I can totally understand that loyalty towards your first stone love

👍
Click to expand...

I'm afraid that even now you wouldn't think me anywhere near talented to enough to bother enslaving me. I'm better at pubs, so if the Australian government ever get round to vaccinating anyone, then at some point I'll come back to visit and we can do that before progression on to youtube stardom ;)


KingShapton said:
Really well written. It sounds a bit like a deep love affair, that may seem strange to one or the other reader, but I can understand that very well myself.
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Indeed... perhaps as much a billet doux as a paean.


dafox said:
I just bought one, bunch of enablers around here!
Looking forward to using it in a kasumi progression and comparing it to a Gesshin 4k and SG 3 and 4k for tomato and pepper cutting edges.
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Smart move! I must remember to get in touch with Suehiro to start claiming my commission.
 
cotedupy said:
Good to hear it gets the love from the experts too!
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I wish! Alas… if not everybody who answered here so far are better than I, then surely they’re no worse.

Can’t compare Cerax 320 and King 300. But I think King 300 costs around 35$ CAD on Amazon so… I guess I COULD get one as soon as I can.
 
i liked the ouka for a while. then i stopped liking it and sold it.
edge was just as my glass 3k. speed about the same.
kasumi always scratchy.
the suehiro green 8k creates a non scratchy better kasumi finish and the glass is much much more practical since i dont need to soak it.
so it had to go.
 
inferno said:
i liked the ouka for a while. then i stopped liking it and sold it.
edge was just as my glass 3k. speed about the same.
kasumi always scratchy.
the suehiro green 8k creates a non scratchy better kasumi finish and the glass is much much more practical since i dont need to soak it.
so it had to go.
Click to expand...

Makes sense.
 
inferno said:
i liked the ouka for a while. then i stopped liking it and sold it.
edge was just as my glass 3k. speed about the same.
kasumi always scratchy.
the suehiro green 8k creates a non scratchy better kasumi finish and the glass is much much more practical since i dont need to soak it.
so it had to go.
Click to expand...
Very true, i pick Ouka if i want to polish since it's easier to do Kasumi on Ouka.
But for touch up, SG3K is easier since it's S&G and harder make it easier for proper micro bevel.
 
Ouka came. Tried it on some AS and Germans.

Love love love the feel. If the edge works out in use, I'll definitely be adding this stone to my goto selection.
Its fast.
Harder than I was expecting.
Cleans off almost fully with palm of hand.
While its advertised as a soaker, it will hold water after only a minute or two submerged. Not sure how the feel or performance will change after a day or two in water.

One complaint. The fixing stone that came with is poop raw. Its got sharp edges and semi proud partials that gouge the Ouka making the Ouka feel bad to sharpen on. Running the fixing stone over a 140 diamond plate to resurface it and chamfer the edges fixed it. Works well after that.
 
branwell said:
Ouka came. Tried it on some AS and Germans.

Love love love the feel. If the edge works out in use, I'll definitely be adding this stone to my goto selection.
Its fast.
Harder than I was expecting.
Cleans off almost fully with palm of hand.
While its advertised as a soaker, it will hold water after only a minute or two submerged. Not sure how the feel or performance will change after a day or two in water.

One complaint. The fixing stone that came with is poop raw. Its got sharp edges and semi proud partials that gouge the Ouka making the Ouka feel bad to sharpen on. Running the fixing stone over a 140 diamond plate to resurface it and chamfer the edges fixed it. Works well after that.
Click to expand...

it also takes a week to dry so its definitely not a splash and go stone at least :)
 
branwell said:
Ouka came. Tried it on some AS and Germans.

Love love love the feel. If the edge works out in use, I'll definitely be adding this stone to my goto selection.
Its fast.
Harder than I was expecting.
Cleans off almost fully with palm of hand.
While its advertised as a soaker, it will hold water after only a minute or two submerged. Not sure how the feel or performance will change after a day or two in water.

One complaint. The fixing stone that came with is poop raw. Its got sharp edges and semi proud partials that gouge the Ouka making the Ouka feel bad to sharpen on. Running the fixing stone over a 140 diamond plate to resurface it and chamfer the edges fixed it. Works well after that.
Click to expand...

The fine Nagura from Cerax is pretty useless. The rough one they send with lower grits works quite well though. Used to use it on NP800, Cerax 700, KDS 1200. But really any stone of those grits take well to Atoma 140. I also use the Atoma on Ouka without a problem - doesn't change its behavior.

You'll want to soak Ouka more than a few minutes when you'll want to do polish work I believe. Doesn't feel as nice for sharpening without a proper soak, but is indeed usable with a short soak, and in fact almost usable S&G.
 
zizirex said:
Atoma 140 doesn't work really well on Karasu 9K and Morihei 12K though. I have a small red DMT to create a slurry, works way better for these stones.
Click to expand...

If you ask me even Morihei 4K is not so receptive with the Atoma 140. I now resurface it with the 4K side of my Imanishi combo, they get along better but it’s still out of having anything better…
 
branwell said:
Ouka came. Tried it on some AS and Germans.

Love love love the feel. If the edge works out in use, I'll definitely be adding this stone to my goto selection.
Its fast.
Harder than I was expecting.
Cleans off almost fully with palm of hand.
While its advertised as a soaker, it will hold water after only a minute or two submerged. Not sure how the feel or performance will change after a day or two in water.

One complaint. The fixing stone that came with is poop raw. Its got sharp edges and semi proud partials that gouge the Ouka making the Ouka feel bad to sharpen on. Running the fixing stone over a 140 diamond plate to resurface it and chamfer the edges fixed it. Works well after that.
Click to expand...

I was pretty sure you'd like B! I think we have quite similar tastes in stuff.

I didn't used to permasoak mine originally, and yeah - I seem to remember it working brilliantly then too. I do now just because I find it convenient; I've got all my soakers sitting in the bucket next to where I sharpen and always ready to go :).

I was wondering about that stone that feels like a sugar cube. What's it for then? I've used it yet, as the stone doesn't need slurry raising, and that seems much coarse anyway. (My combi didn't come with one, and did just fine without!)
 
applepieforbreakfast said:
Just ordered one.
Only $45 on Amazon.
https://smile.amazon.com/Suehiro-Seller-Ouka3000DN-206x73x23mm-without/dp/B07S8KHN94
Click to expand...

Someone on this sub told me to buy the Suehiro Ouka about a month ago (I needed a stone to bridge the gap between 1K and 6K) and I took their advice. I was buying it for honing straight razors, and I'm really glad I bought it. The Suehiro Ouka is a wonderful stone, the feedback and feel of the stone is just dreamy, creamy, and very satisfying. I got on Amazon for less then $40 bucks!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0176C035G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's slightly smaller then a full-size stone, but is perfect for straight razors (and is still perfectly acceptable size for knife work as well).

Whoever told me to buy the Suehiro, thank you for the great advice.
 
cotedupy said:
Good to hear it gets the love from the experts too!

For a while I felt like I was clearly missing something, or not sharpening properly... as stone after stone I tried at a similar grit just wasn't as good as my tatty old combi. Which came in an unmarked cardboard box, and I bought because it was the only stone in the shop. It was only after I gave up trying to find others as good, that I found out I'd got lucky and it was a Cerax. And you've pointed out another of my favourite things, which I forgot to mention: it simply doesn't ever clog :).

Good to know about the Cerax 320 too; I've got a great coarse stone for removing material, but have been thinking about getting a posher one for beginning kasumi &c. Other I was thinking about was the King 300, don't know if you have any thoughts/experience on how they'd compare...?
Click to expand...
I have the King 300, it's a good stone, I've used it for all sorts of things, from fixing broken tips to lapping old barber hones. You can't really beat it for the price. Now that I know Cerax makes a 320, I'll probably pick one up when I have some extra cash lying around. Right now I really need an Atoma diamond plate for lapping and flattening my stones, among other things.
 
branwell said:
Ouka came. Tried it on some AS and Germans.

Love love love the feel. If the edge works out in use, I'll definitely be adding this stone to my goto selection.
Its fast.
Harder than I was expecting.
Cleans off almost fully with palm of hand.
While its advertised as a soaker, it will hold water after only a minute or two submerged. Not sure how the feel or performance will change after a day or two in water.

One complaint. The fixing stone that came with is poop raw. Its got sharp edges and semi proud partials that gouge the Ouka making the Ouka feel bad to sharpen on. Running the fixing stone over a 140 diamond plate to resurface it and chamfer the edges fixed it. Works well after that.
Click to expand...
The nagura dressing stone that comes with it isn't great, but it beats a blank I guess. You can pick up a King 8K nagura stone for less then $15 bucks on amazon, and you can either use to it dress your stones, or use the slurry to polish your edges. I do use the the little nagura that came with the Suehiro, but you have to get rid of the rough/sharp edges so it doesn't accidentally dig into the face of your stone. You can also pick up an Atoma slurry plate (a small 3"x2" Atoma affixed to a thick piece of oak) for around $25 bucks at Chef Knives to go.

Make sure you give it the once over before using it, just to be safe. You don't want any jagged edges gauging your stone. I went with the 1200 grit Atoma, but you can also pick up a 400 grit or a coarser 140 grit. I hit the edges with my Foredom tool, and sealed the wood with some shellac. It's a good compromise until I can pick up a full size Atoma.
 
Grayswandir said:
Someone on this sub told me to buy the Suehiro Ouka about a month ago (I needed a stone to bridge the gap between 1K and 6K) and I took their advice. I was buying it for honing straight razors, and I'm really glad I bought it. The Suehiro Ouka is a wonderful stone, the feedback and feel of the stone is just dreamy, creamy, and very satisfying. I got on Amazon for less then $40 bucks!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0176C035G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's slightly smaller then a full-size stone, but is perfect for straight razors (and is still perfectly acceptable size for knife work as well).

Whoever told me to buy the Suehiro, thank you for the great advice.
Click to expand...

Haha! I think that might’ve been me too... Need some advice on a stone...

Glad you like!
 
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