# China's Volcano Whetstone



## aichmophobia (Jul 9, 2016)

This week I bought from China several China's recently developed Volcano Whetstones for US$8 (exclude shipping). Below is the best one I have ever used. Very hard, but juicy, lots of minerals and tiny silicate and colorful, around 6000-8000 grits, powders are so smooth and so soft. polishes my blades very well, very close to Japanese natural/volcano stones. This stone is from south-western China river where sleeping volcanoes are located, probably 500 million years old.

Chinese never cared about whetstone development in their 5000 year history, because unlike Japanese black-smith, blade makers and sharpening jobs were/are considered as very low class workers, therefore they were/are using 99.99% cheap US$1.2 green water stones made of carbonates or natural oxides.

In recent 3 years, Japanese stones flooded into China with high price, people are fascinated and crazy about Japanese stone just like the Americans, therefore price went up to US$100 to US$1500 or even higher. One of the miner in China began to study and analyze and mining China's river(south-western) and seabed(north-eastern) volcano stones. I am not promoting for him, please do not ask me where you can buy it.


----------



## aichmophobia (Jul 9, 2016)

With the price of US$8, I can experiment lots of different stones. If I want to experiment Japanese stones and find good stones, it may cost me US$10,000!! It's crazy.

Also, Japan is forbidding to mine whetstones, most famous quarries were closed, therefore the price went up crazily in the past decades years (also because China is getting rich, its people are importing lots of Japanese natural stones stocks nowadays). I predict China's mines will be a new vast cheap supply to the world in the next decades, with its very cheap mining labor.


----------



## XooMG (Jul 9, 2016)

I've seen stones like these for sale but there seemed to be quite a variation with sellers like &#28504;** and I didn't want to take a gamble, since there's a second charge for shipping to Taiwan.

Looks cool though...any chance we can get a picture of a bevel finish?


----------



## gic (Jul 9, 2016)

Yep I too would be interested in knowing how these turn out!


----------



## Badgertooth (Jul 9, 2016)

Would love to see two things. 

1. The cutting edge it leaves after a big grit leap. Ie what would it do with newspaper and tomatoes if the previous stone was 1 - 2k

2. If it's any good as a polisher. Ie let's see what it does on a wide bevel.

Would be awesome if you've found something worthwhile!


----------



## tsuriru (Jul 10, 2016)

Could you please take a picture of the stone when wet and with some slurry as well?


----------



## psfred (Jul 10, 2016)

My brother's comment on my japanese stones was "bedded chert" (he's a professional geologist). Bedded cherts are NOT rare, anywhere there is limestone there is chert, some of it bedded (a result of collection of marine silicate skeletons of various sorts) and some of it nodular (flints of various types). The key thing is the shape of the particles and friability of the stone, and the japanese stones are very very nice in both reguards.

Arkansas stones are bedded chert and are fine except for the lack of friability -- I find them much too hard so that they "glaze" -- actually become too smooth. I've tested some chert pebbles from landscaping stone "mulch", and they do in fact cut steel pretty well, but most of them are too glassy.

I'd not be surprised that there are good deposits of nice sharpening stones in many parts of the world. The advent of synthetic stones a century ago pretty much put the natural stone quarries out of business, it's much cheaper to make synthetic stones of known and even grit than it is to mine cherts and fish out the good stones from the junk. Sedimentary rocks are not exactly uniform...

I do have a couple Chinese stones of unknown composition (from eBay) that were inexpensive. Dark gray, very hard, and seem to put a decent edge on plane blades if I use some slurry raised with a diamond hone -- they don't make much with steel. Probably better for razors and woodworking tools than knives, but I may try them on my new DP gyuto just for fun.

A supply of fairly reasonably priced natural stones from China would be nice, but then again a source in the US would be as well!

Peter


----------



## rick_english (Jul 10, 2016)

Well said, thank you.


----------



## nianton (Jul 11, 2016)

so where do we find these Chinese stones?


----------

