Help me build a stone progression for polishing

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NotAddictedYet

I react to your post
Joined
May 13, 2020
Messages
999
Reaction score
1,786
Location
Chicago
Currently I have these stones and this is the progression I think I can put together:
Gesshin 220 -> SP320 -> SG 500 -> ??? (something 800-1k) -> SP2000 -> Aizu (3k?) -> Shiro Suita (6k?)

I had a pretty nice (and niice smell) green aoto in the 800 range. Unfortunately lost that one to a leak and mold..Same for a hideriyama.
Also I think I have a SP5000 somewhere if I can manage to find it..

Gesshin 220 would be for knives that need heavy thinning/cleaning up high or low spots.
SP320 would be the most common starting point for knives with belt marks.

I have 3 questions:
- Any problem do you see in the existing stone lineup that could cause problem for my polishing?
- What's a suitable medium coarse (800-1k) stone? Should I lean toward the lower grit (800 or lower) or 1k is fine? Does it matter if it's a natural (i.e. natsuya) or synthethic (i.e. SP1000), if I am going to SP2000 next? Maybe going straight from SG500 to SP2000 is ok?
- Do I need a natural stone in between the Aizu and Shiro suita?
 
Skip the aizu or other mid grits, at least to start. They're fun, but not necessary. Instead get something synthetic in the 5-6k range and from there you can jump straight to something on the softer / coarser end of the suita spectrum like a Maruo shiro. The smaller your jumps in synthetic stones the more efficient your scratch erasure will be. I prefer to never more than double grit at each stage.

As for the natural stone - a Maruo shiro suita, Maruo shiki uchi, and some certain Ohira suitas are relatively common good bets for a first stone. You want something not overly fine and not hard.

From there, see if you like the process. The last thing you want to do is sink a ton of money into JNats and then end up not loving polishing all that much. Unlike a few years ago, its not a given you'll be able to get your money back (or close enough) on stones anymore and you might end up taking a pretty big loss.
 
Thank you both for your advice. Looks like I am good with naturals since I already have a Maruo shiro suita which will be my finisher for now.

I will need to get a SP1k for sure. Any recs for a synthetic 5k that excels in polishing? @ethompson

Also I just realized I have a JNS red aoto at home as well but I don't think it would be too useful at 2k-4k according to JNS.
 
Superstone 5K is great for polishing, performs well above grit rating. See how you do with the 3K. I think the JNS synthetics are great if that's where you want to stop. That is, the 800 and the Red Aoto will hide any number of sins. If you move on to fine naturals, you'd rather have used something else. But, on their own, they are a good one-two combination and leave nice results.
 
Thank you both for your advice. Looks like I am good with naturals since I already have a Maruo shiro suita which will be my finisher for now.

I will need to get a SP1k for sure. Any recs for a synthetic 5k that excels in polishing? @ethompson

Also I just realized I have a JNS red aoto at home as well but I don't think it would be too useful at 2k-4k according to JNS.
I like my Cerax 5k a lot. It’s silky yet grippy. It’s not a hard stone, so above cautions apply.
 
I've been enjoying my Naniwa diamond stone lately and they are great cutter and you can see clearly what material you are removing from the blade. It took me a while to appreciate them but since I started polishing on stone again I am really happy with my purchase.

As @ethompson said, too soft and the mud that it will make will hide the imperfections. And on your next stones you will pay the price and you will have to go back, which is frustrating and unpleasant as you might know.

I also use Naniwa super 3k and this super soft stone glaze really fast, which is a good thing for polishing. I have 3k, 5k, 8k and 12k. I love them all! Most often I simply stop at 3k and the surface is nice and clean and ready to move on to jnat.
 
I also use Naniwa super 3k and this super soft stone glaze really fast, which is a good thing for polishing. I have 3k, 5k, 8k and 12k. I love them all! Most often I simply stop at 3k and the surface is nice and clean and ready to move on to jnat.
Complete novice polisher here, could you help me understand glazing and its purpose in polishing?
 
I’d be happy to explain. When the stone starts to get too much steel in its pores, it begins to cut less effectively. With the Naniwa Super, the surface becomes really dark and this allows it to polish without any slurry refreshing the surface with new abrasive.

Less slurry = clean polish.
More slurry = more hazy effect.

Obviously it depends on the stones used and other factors, but generally, that’s how it works.
 
I’d be happy to explain. When the stone starts to get too much steel in its pores, it begins to cut less effectively. With the Naniwa Super, the surface becomes really dark and this allows it to polish without any slurry refreshing the surface with new abrasive.

Less slurry = clean polish.
More slurry = more hazy effect.

Obviously it depends on the stones used and other factors, but generally, that’s how it works.

Would you say there is a lot of progression between the superstone 2, 5, 8 , 12k?
I have a 2/5k combo stone and both seem to do a mirror polish allready.

Do the 8,10,12k really improve this?
 
Yes, the higher the grit, the more the “true mirror” starts to appear. Smaller the gap, the better control you have on those scratches.

I’ve finished a blade at 200k before and even then, there were still imperfections. Finishing a blade to a mirror polish is the most difficult thing to achieve.


This is almost a flawless polish I did on the baby honyaki for my girlfriend. For honyaki I only use sandpaper and diamond paste.

I have immense respect for those who do stone polishing like @nutmeg. But I think I have far less patience and stamina left in my elbows to do it the traditional way 😅.
 
The synthetic stones I have, which are good for sharpening, turn out to be crap for polishing. The 200 is not uniform, the 400 is too soft, the 1000 is too muddy , The only one that works for me is rock star 500. I need something before and after that you recommend:(
 
Back
Top