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I have to say that they are muchlarger than any of the cheap china stones ive had before.
Most of the stones came packaged very nicely, the suehiro stones each had a nagura to it (yes even the 320 gritt!) and the kitayama had a japanese green tea as a present.
I am the most dissapointed with the naniwa 12K and the Kitayama, though it might be for different reasons than you guys expect.
Anyway let me tell you my thoughts about each.
Atoma 140 - The biggest surprise to me, i actually really like it. The feeling on it is MUCH better than any cheap diaomnd stone and it is a work horse, creating new bevels with easy - Really gotta be careful to do it right.
I stuck some 400 gritt sand paper film so i can also use it to flatten and smoothen stones. The 140 gritt is way too rough to flatten anything over a 1000# without leaving deep scratches in the stones. Everything about it works and it looks great. It almost makes me want to buy the higher gritts, but then what would i have the stones for?
Suehiro Cerax 320 - I have had high hopes for this stone. It dishes a little faster than i would like, but has a decent feel (compared to any other under 400 gritt stone i tried, all stones in that range feel kind of imperfect) and finish.
Getting rid of the atoma 140 scratches is no problem, though this stone really makes a big mess and needs a lot water, creating a lot of mud too.
I tried to correct a soft knife's broken tip (under 1mm broke off) and regrind it a little bit like i usually do with cheap kitchen knives and about a half mm of the stone was gone in the middle. I guess thats to be expected. It does its job well, but due to the Atoma being suprisingly good i kind of feel dissapointed with it.
I will do the bigger changes on the atoma from now on before i progress to this one.
Suehiro Cerax 1000 - I bought this one just to try it out because it was fairly cheap and i only paid one shipping price with the naniwa. I like this stone, it doesnt take too long to soak, the feeling on it is good, you feel that it grinds a lot material.
It doesnt dish too bad and does not load up. I would say it has a great load up to dishing balance.
Nice uniform scratch pattern, quick stone and can deal with a hard razor no problem.
The following pics are of the spine of a razor (easier to take pictures of) and its edge.
Suehiro Rika 5000 - I really like this stone. The jump from the 1000 to 5000 might be a little bit too much when grinding a hard razor though. I did spend some time on this and you can see some of the scratches are probably left. It has a nice finish thatlooks shiny on some knives and matt on others. Harder knives steels seem shinier.
The feel and feedback of this stone are great, better than the 1000. After just a few minutes soaking this stone grinds uniformly and feels the same everywhere, giving a smooth yet aggresive feeling. Near to no load up just like the 1000.
Kitayama 8000 - As my first splash'n'go stone, i hoped it would be quick and easy to use to maybe maintain my kitchen knives.
This stone proved to be very odd. Sometimes the feeling on it is crisp and awesome and sometimes it feels like grinding on glass without any feedback. On top of that this stone loads up a lot and is very soft, with high angles the danger of cutting into the stone is really high. I would say that its just as soft as the naniwa 12k, one really has to be careful when not using a trailing motion.
It does not seem to grind uniformly given the load up, some places grind smoothly, some have no load up and some are completely black or have dots in them.
The time one saves on the soaking one spends on cleaning this stone up. I havent figured out why it feels differently at times but it seems that after flattening it (with the smooth sandpaper) or letting it soak a little water for a minute it feels good, anwiped clean of the slurry or used for a while getting a little load up this feeling is gone.
This is especially noticable with the razor, where it seems to have trouble getting rid of the 5k scratches and creating an uniform pattern - There are here and there deeper scratches in it, but the difference is not big. the 8-12k natural stone composition would explain that well enough for me.
For kitchen knives this is a great finish, giving enough shine and sharpness for a smooth push cut but still kind of microscopically toothy so that sawing with the knife does something.
Naniwa SS 12000 - This stone came covered in something, i think the kitayama did too, so at first i needed to get rid of that. Some kind of protective layer of lacquer? i dont know.
This stone feels SO SMOOTH to the touch, but this smoothness doesnt necessarily translate into the grinding feeling.
After doing so it worked nicely, it gives a very nice bright shine and a great sharpness that can be felt (it shaves much better and that includes kitchen knives, even if it lasts maybe for just a few cuts).
Thereis SO MUCH load up in this stone so quickly and its very hard to get rid of it. Similary to the kitayama this stone feels nice when is fresh and with the load up it gets worse. The load up on this stone is very odd, there are random black spots all over the stone so one doesnt really see or understand how the knife is ground.
Again a very soft stone, very easy to cut into.
What however bother me the most is the fact that it creates fairly deep scratches, probably somewhere around 1000# deep.
So even though it makes a nice finish, it also ruins it at the same time! The sharpness is great though and that makes me torn.
I have spent a lot of time and ground my razor back to 320 gritt and to 1000 gritt way to many times to make sure that it really is this stone that creates it. so NO it is NOT the previous scratches becoming more visible.
Here i have used a 1, 0,5 and 0,25 diamond paste to prepare the surface after the kitayama (the scratches cant be really seen by the naked eye unless one really reaaly is looking for them, i use the light that shows the scratches the best for the pictures)
And here it is after the naniwa (all visible by the naked eye)
[URL='https://ibb.co/k9vPux']
[/URL][URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc'][URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']I made absolutely sure there was no contamination and i washed the stones properly, used fresh water and everything...
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']To prove it even more i have used a 45 degree angle the entire time, except for the naniwa. The stright scratches have to be from that.
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']One place suggested it could be from the edge of the stone, i made sure the edges are smooth and round and i did not drag my razor across it.
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']Some people say that one has to flatten it properly to make it work. I did try that as well.
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']So it seems splash'N'go stones are a little bit different, i might be using them wrong. The kitayama i will try to figure out. Tje Naniwa i might replace, as it makes me just frustrated to work for a great finish.
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']I have read about a smooth stone, often compared to the naniwa, that is a little bit more expensive but more agress, I dont remember the name and i dont remember where ive read about it. I think it was also availible in several gritts. Maybe something with a G?
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']Does anyone of you know which stone that is?
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']
[URL='https://ibb.co/iXKdMc']For now ill go back to finishing with the pastes, at least with this progression i dont need to start at 5 micron but can start at 0,5 or 1, that saves me a lot time.[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
