Naniwa Chosera Whetstone SS-400 Grit 400

The best stone for knives ever made. It's the best value, I would get an 800 grit too but yeah, you can't beat the value or the quality. After this point you can spend more money sure but the grind patterns will marginally improve. I would not use this to Sharpen steals like S90V, Use diamond plates for that and don't press down too hard on the diamond, you will dislodge them. For the wet stone, please use this with a metal over the sink holder. This way you can run water over the wet stone which helps keep it clean, gunk-free and you avoid the long soak times. Remember to get a leveling stone, A cheap one will do, $15 bucks. If you need to know more just leave a review asking for help or a guide and i will answer your questions. This is the best brand. Also learning to hit the same angle ever time is the most important factor of all. It's hard and takes practice but there are good guides you can use and youtube videos to help with that. But yeah Again this is the best brand in the world. You can look at the grind patterns on the knives under an electron microscope to confirm how good this brand is. Scientist have done this and the grind is amazing some of the best out there. This rivals $400 stones!

The Chosera line of stones are my favorite. I sharpen knives as a side job and these are my go to stones with expensive kitchen knives or knives with super steels or expensive knives in general that I wish to give the best treatment. The stones are splash and go, DO NOT SOAK, and are extremely hard and slow wearing while cutting metal very quickly. Smoothest tactile feel of any water stone I've ever used. Just an absolute joy to use. Like ever other stone in this line, it polishes above it's grit level but still cuts as fast as the stated grit. In a progression, I usually use this as the first stone for very dull blades or blades that need a chip repaired or need to be reprofiled, etc before stepping up to a 1000. I've never found the need to start with a coarser diamond plate either, this stone makes quick work of even the hardest metals with large carbides. This is the older version that is 25mm thick and comes with an attached base and nagura (which I never use but, I know some people like them). The newer stones are branded "Naniwa Professional" they are 5mm thinner and come without the base for the same price but are supposedly harder and slower wearing but I have not noticed any performance differences between the two versions so, definitely go with the older Chosera version as long as they're available.

Amazing stone, it should be more protected, like bubble wrap, but thankfully arrive in perfect condition, true splash and go! Amazing stone!!!!! True splash and go!!! Cuts really fast!!!Arrived well protected with bubble wrap!!!For those worried about cracks, the instructions that comes with the stone CLEARLY SAYS, do not soak in water, after using it, store it in room temperature, do not expose it to direct sun light, or cold weather, do not accelerate the drying with wind, that means do not use a fan, if you are not going to use it for a long time, put it in a sealed storage, and with time it probably develop some streaks lines on the surface, that is normal and doesn’t affect the performance of the stone, if anyone follows that instructions, you won’t have any issues

This stone works well for roughing in an edge. I have this one (400), the 800, and the 3000. Lastly, I use a leather strop (home made) with white rouge for the finish. Razor sharp. Mirror finish. This is the best sharpening setup I've owned.I just went through my old chisels and have them gleaming. They're sharper than they've ever been. (My Lie-Nielson chisels only needed the strop to bring them back.) I used the Veritas chisel guide to re-establish the bevel and micro bevel on each of the old chisels.For fun, I sharpened the dullest stainless steel kitchen knife my wife had. It's now almost as sharp as the Shun Classic knife set, though the bevel is steeper. It won't keep the edge like the rh61 Shun knives, but it was fun to do. It's a perfect knife for boning now. This 400 grit stone cut quickly to establish an initial edge on an extremely dull knife.I'm using an old DMT DuoSharp (600/1200) diamond sharpener to keep the stones flat. It works well for that, but seems to cut metal far slower than the stones when used directly as a sharpener.

The stone is quality no question about it. If this is your only stone then you will definitely get the job done with it and will bring knives to decent sharpness without moving up grit levels. But if this is just the Coarse Stone in your set then you may want something with some more bite. The stone just feels a little soft and it takes some more passes to really bring back a dull blade to life. Perhaps something more abrasive would be better in a set of stones than this one. If I had to go back I think I would pair a 320 grit stone with the Chosera 1000 and a polishing stone.