Anyone Heard of Natural Whetstones from Indonesia?

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DHunter86

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Recently came across a whetstone miner from. Indonesia on Instagram:

https://instagram.com/batu_asah_alam?igshid=1x10nb0b6at3p
The stones look rather clean and interesting, but there's not much information on them. More importantly, the seller has not posted any sharpening photos with the slurry, so I'm not able to tell whether they're any good.

I'm wondering whether anyone here has had any experience with them.
 
Yeah, I'm trying to get a quote on shipping. The price the guy quoted me definitely wasn't what's posted on his IG posts, but he gave free reign in choosing whatever size I wanted.

While I could go for huge blocks, I didn't want to end up with a tonne of paper weights... So looking to see if anyone has tried something from them.

Still waiting to hear back on shipping.
 
From the photos and the fact that the stones are below US$10, this forum is likely not the target market.
 
From the comments, it seems they've been mainly selling domestically. The guy said he's once shipped to Malaysia and Bahrain, but that's about it.
 
I'd be very curious to hear from the Indonesians on this forum.
 
Yeah, so I'd expect shipping to be reasonable. I'm thinking of picking up either three of the available grits, or maybe a full set just to play around with.

But from a single video that I managed to find, it seems that they're really slow cutting. Another guy on YouTube was using WD40 as a lubricant, but the angle of the video did not show what was happening on the stone.
 
Yeah, so I'd expect shipping to be reasonable. I'm thinking of picking up either three of the available grits, or maybe a full set just to play around with.

But from a single video that I managed to find, it seems that they're really slow cutting. Another guy on YouTube was using WD40 as a lubricant, but the angle of the video did not show what was happening on the stone.

My uneducated guess is that they're going to be similar to the black khao men from thailand. They look similarly shiny and dense.
 
Yeah, been thinking about trying to get that direct from Thailand. From what I can see, aranyik ships from Hawaii now? But definitely, on the to-try list. queue... :)
 
Hmmm that's new. I have tried this one, I do have some Indonesian Whetstone that is pretty fine, but where I got it is pretty hard to find (Like rural area in the less populated province). I haven't tried the contrast, maybe if I come back to Indonesia I will try this one.
 
Thanks Marek, I'll drop him a line.

Btw, the seller from Indonesia is far from being transparent with his pricing, just FYI for those of you who would like to make a purchase. He quoted me a price that's about double what he has listed in Bahasa on his IG posts from last week... and that's excluding shipping. Still cheap, all things considered (unless they become overpriced paper weights), but not too happy about that way of doing business.

Edit: He said that those items have been sold. Anyway, remember to check his tokopedia page as his quoted pricing is really random and much higher than what he lists there...
 
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I did want to, but the seller disappeared on me after agreeing to a price etc. Never followed up after that, and his IG account has been dormant ever since...
 
I did want to, but the seller disappeared on me after agreeing to a price etc. Never followed up after that, and his IG account has been dormant ever since...

Oh I never actually clicked through to your original IG link! I wonder if this is connected though... Login • Instagram They certainly look similar.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts @captaincaed if you did grab any...
 
An Italian YouTuber made a video on them:



Don't know if Google can provide the translated subs.

He reviewed 2 batches, more from the perspective of razor sharpening, the first batch resulted slow with too much variation in grit.
The s con seems better.
Shipping costs way more than the stones...
 
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