# Favorite non-Japanese natural stones?



## GorillaGrunt (Mar 6, 2021)

What do you like? I know there’s a number of them out there, lots of traditional razor hones of varying suitability for knives. And that’s about all I know other than that Coticules are said to be very good, and as expensive as a jnat in a bench size.


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## banzai_burrito (Mar 7, 2021)

Khao Men, it's affordable and definitely going to last me a lifetime. Plus, Miles is great to work with and it'll come with a tomo nagura


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## musicman980 (Mar 7, 2021)

Coticule hands down. For a razor finisher it’s also an incredible polisher for my knives and woodworking tools, lightening fast, and seems to cut any steel out there with ease. Seeing as a $400 full size bench stone is only 7-10mm thick of actual coticule, they might be the most expensive whetstone per ounce. That’s not a surprise.


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## riba (Mar 7, 2021)

I have this small coticule that is great for touch ups, just handheld





Understood it is not ideal for razors due to the red lines, but on knives it leaves a refined yet toothy edge. Really nice and pretty fast.


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## KingShapton (Mar 7, 2021)

Arkansas


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## Benuser (Mar 7, 2021)

Belgian Blue Brocken is a by-product of Coticule mining and contains the same abrasives, in a much lesser amount. With Coticule you can, depending on the slurry you raise, cover a huge reach of grits, from 1500 to 15k. Not so with the Brocken, which stays at about 4k. The round form of the abrasives allows a very easy deburring, as it will abrade a burr without creating a new one. I use it for deburring and reviving an edge.


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

Well this seems as though it'll be a thread that's going to be right up my alley!

(For anyone wanting to fall head-first into it here are some incredibly interesting studies.... Different Types of Natural Stones )


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## Pertti (Mar 7, 2021)

I have no favorites here as Ive never even used a natural stone. Just sharing these Finnish natural phyllite stones claimed to go up to about 30k with slurry, in case someone might be interested. Again I have no experience with these, a bit too expensive that I'd actually buy one.:









Japanese sharpening stones | Hiomakivi.fi English


Quality Japanese sharpening stones and whetstones for knives. Naniwa, Shapton, Cerax, Suehiro, Morihei, Atoma. Our goal is to offer you one of the best-valued whetstones and knives from the higher end of the range. These stones are used in kitchens and workshops all over.




www.whetstone.fi





Here is the makers IG, we have chatted a bit, Mikael was nice and eager to help. Got a nice teaser clip too.






Mikael Vaskelainen (@knifemakermikael) • Instagram photos and videos







instagram.com


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

So I have a little (possibly 'too much'  ) experience of using and making stones from local slates, though not really with anything else. But it seems to me that all of the 'best' natural stones we talk about about are usually finer - finishing or honing stones... why is that? Are there very good, coarse natural stones out there?

(I found a couple of stones today that I think might work quite well when flattened. But I may not bother if it's a fool's errand...)


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

This is one... a kinda layered sandstone I think (?) It looks like it has quite a lot of fine quartz through it. But the distribution and feel of it makes me hopeful it could work for coarse sharpening. Fine stones are two a penny  but good coarse naturals seem tricky to come by!


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## musicman980 (Mar 7, 2021)

cotedupy said:


> So I have a little (possibly 'too much'  ) experience of using and making stones from local slates, though not really with anything else. But it seems to me that all of the 'best' natural stones we talk about about are usually finer - finishing or honing stones... why is that? Are there very good, coarse natural stones out there?
> 
> (I found a couple of stones today that I think might work quite well when flattened. But I may not bother if it's a fool's errand...)



Maybe it’s a rarity thing? Some .1% or less of all mined Jnat rock were of razor grade. Or maybe it’s a pragmatic issue, where coarse synthetics blow coarse naturals out of the water in terms of speed and consistency. 

Are the slates you gather on the finer side? That’s really interesting.


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## GorillaGrunt (Mar 7, 2021)

cotedupy said:


> So I have a little (possibly 'too much'  ) experience of using and making stones from local slates, though not really with anything else. But it seems to me that all of the 'best' natural stones we talk about about are usually finer - finishing or honing stones... why is that? Are there very good, coarse natural stones out there?
> 
> (I found a couple of stones today that I think might work quite well when flattened. But I may not bother if it's a fool's errand...)



probably in part because doing the rest of the sharpening can be done with synthetics, and the final stone or two gives a lot to the final edge or polish.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

I have


cotedupy said:


> So I have a little (possibly 'too much'  ) experience of using and making stones from local slates, though not really with anything else. But it seems to me that all of the 'best' natural stones we talk about about are usually finer - finishing or honing stones... why is that? Are there very good, coarse natural stones out there?
> 
> (I found a couple of stones today that I think might work quite well when flattened. But I may not bother if it's a fool's errand...)




I have a couple coarser naturals. I can put pictures up later. Here's a start off of the top of my head. I might have a few more. They are nice to have but synthetic coarse stones are much faster and easier to keep flat.

Washita
Several versions of sandstone
Pierre du levant/Turkish oil stone


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

musicman980 said:


> Maybe it’s a rarity thing? Some .1% or less of all mined Jnat rock were of razor grade. Or maybe it’s a pragmatic issue, where coarse synthetics blow coarse naturals out of the water in terms of speed and consistency.
> 
> Are the slates you gather on the finer side? That’s really interesting.



Tbh I have very little experience in *comparing* these things that you should take anything I say with a fistful of salt but... I seem to be able to use a single slate as a lot of different grits depending on slurry management. They only thing they can't really do is toothy/bitey edges 

And it's not easy - I certainly wouldn't use them for day-to-day sharpening. (I'm not sure what razor grade is, but I doubt they're that!)


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

stringer said:


> I have
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Would love to see / know more about these...


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

I will see what I can do. I bought a new house and in my very little free time I have been putting together my new basement workshop. Maybe I can find an hour to play with some rocks today.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Mar 7, 2021)

KingShapton said:


> Arkansas



Ditto.

Especially soft and black.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

First off. I am not a polisher. I do not have the skills (patience) for it despite my sincere desire to want to learn. Most of these stones I have very little experience with using for knives. I got most of them for razor sharpening. For the most part I think that coarse work is best done with sandpaper, synthetics, and belt grinders. Coarse naturals in my experience are pretty slow. Even on relatively softer vintage razor steel, I only have a few stones I would use to try and cut a razor bevel for instance unless the razor was in pristine condition to start with. None of these stones would really work for any significant reprofiling or thinning. So with those caveats, I will begin.

Test Knife - 165mm Tosa Nakiri from Hida Tool
Iron clad mystery steel
About 59-60 HRC by my guess
The knife has not been sharpened or touched up for a month. It's in rough shape. It has quite a bit of damage to it because I used it chop some chicken carcasses up for stock. It's a little rusty because it got put into a plastic knife cover a little bit wet. Oops! The bevels were last polished with a Naniwa Superstone 2k.










I will be sharpening the wide bevels. I will spend 2 or 3 minutes scrubbing each side of the knife on each stone and then take a pic or two. 

Here are the stones. None of these came with labels or anything. They are all fleabay specials. So what I call them is my best guess based the seller's claims and my own research, if you think I have misidentified any of these or know one of the mystery ones please let me know.

Left to right:
Pierre du levant/Turkish oil stone
Washita
Unknown Greenish Grey Stone
Unknown Reddish Grey Stone
Soft Arkansas
Natural Coticule/Belgian Blue Combo
Guangxi River Rock/Chinese 12K/PHIG
Butterscotch Arkansas
Owyhee Jasper


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

Pierre du levant / Turkish oil stone

This is the best guess of the guy I bought it from and he is someone I trust on these matters.

It looks coarser and harder than it is. It is in the picture above underneath the nakiri

I have tried it with water which felt absolutely pointless.
Mineral oil seems to be slightly better.

After several minutes of scrubbing on each side I had cleared the rust but failed to raise a burr or clear all of the damage. But the edge was improved slightly on the paper towel test.

I keep this stone because it is a rare find but I have never really found anything to use it for. Synthetics are 20 times faster at fixing damage. The polish is uneven and scratchy. It has crappy feedback and out of all my natural stones leaves the most disappointing edges on both razors and knives. 









Next was the Washita. I bought this one at a pawn shop in Vegas. It took months of soaking in simple green to get all of the kerosene out of it. First I tried flattening the dished side but ended up breaking it free of its wood case and lapping the opposite side. I love this stone. True bench size. Cuts very quickly for a natural stone. I have used this to cut bevels on razors and generally don't use it on knives because I want to keep it flat and I know it wants to dish quick. I use it with oil because it cuts so fast and releases so much abrasive that it clogs very quickly with water. Oil works much better. I have shaved off of this stone, but it's a little "unrefined". 50 strokes on a nice coticule and you are there however. Knife edges are sublime however. And the polish looks pretty good. Sorry for the crappy lighting.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

Next is the green-grey (I am also colorblind, so colors are sort of a best guess too) short one. This could be another washita or it could be something else. It feels like sandstone when it is dry but gets super smooth when wet. I use it with water. I have not used this one much at all. It came in a lot with a bunch of other stones and just haven't gotten around to it. I was surprised that it performed pretty similarly to the washita, maybe slightly slower. Still pretty difficult to raise a perceptible burr. At least in the two minutes per side per stone I had allotted myself. Edge feels sharp. Polish is actually pretty nice. Good contrast. Shiny core steel. If I worked on it I could probably get it pretty scratch free. I am impressed.















Next is the reddish sandstone. It was broken in transit, or it came with a matching tomo nagura depending on how you look at it. I do use the little piece like a slurry stone.











When it's wet you can really see the red






The edges off of this stone are really nice. Good contrast. The scratch pattern is pretty coarse but very uniform.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

Soft Arkansas. This one usually stays in the knife drawer for quick touchups. It is really fast at edge work for a natural. Feels like about a 1k synthetic stone. I use it with water. 

Here's dry




And wet





Edges are toothy but refined. Despite the speed, still hard to raise a burr the way that you do on synthetic stones. Not as good as contrast as some of the coarser stones, but still better than a corresponding synthetic. Probably polishes in the 2k range. Some unevenness and stray particles here and there.












I'm getting some lunch. Here is the Belgian Blue. One of my favorites. I will tell you about it later.


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## childermass (Mar 7, 2021)

I really like the stones from Wästikivi. They are also phyllite but they are cut in a fashion to be medium grit stones around 2k not 30k like the other Finnish stones already mentioned here earlier.
I have a handheld one hanging in my kitchen for when I quickly need some extra sharpness and bite.

For finishing chisels I also enjoy my small Scottish Dalmore Blue.


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## inferno (Mar 7, 2021)

great work stringer! 

regarding medium/low grit nats. from what i've read over the last 15 years or so. there are no really good ones of these. 
it seems most natural stones that people think are good are the mid/high grits. from maybe 3k and upwards. 
and the majority seems to be in the 6-15k range.

the thing that makes synths good/fast is that the abrasive can cut pretty much all steels. and as you use them more new fresh sharp abrasive gets exposed all the time.

also i think there is a good reason most of the popular stones are jnats. there is a ton of info on them. areas/mines/stratas/appearances etc.
and if you spend a little time reading you will be able to get a pretty good idea what you're getting. 

-------

i have 2 small but wide coticules and then an uchi. and while those might be "fast" in the natural stone world. i think even my shapton 12k is faster than these.

i have been looking at the belgian blues for some time now. and i think i want one as soon as i'm done with my synth high grit testing.
these are pretty much a known quality. i like that.

in the future i could see myself getting a white-ish suita. just to see what its all about. and maybe some cool karasu stone. and maybe a full size coticule.
but the coti i will probably have to hand pick. good luck for me i guess with that one.


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## inferno (Mar 7, 2021)

childermass said:


> I really like the stones from Wästikivi. They are also phyllite but they are cut in a fashion to be medium grit stones around 2k not 30k like the other Finnish stones already mentioned here earlier.
> I have a handheld one hanging in my kitchen for when I quickly need some extra sharpness and bite.
> 
> For finishing chisels I also enjoy my small Scottish Dalmore Blue.



tell us more! why is the wästikivi stones coarser? they cut them in a certain way? 

these are not so hard to buy here in scandinavia.


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## Benuser (Mar 7, 2021)

inferno said:


> i have 2 small but wide coticules and then an uchi. and while those might be "fast" in the natural stone world. i think even my shapton 12k is faster than these.


With Coticules a lot will depend on the slurry you raise. I use — very old school — saliva to start with and only dilute with water little by little. The thick slurry cuts really fast.
For a full sharpening, Belgian Blue is extremely slow.


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## inferno (Mar 7, 2021)

here is a test i just did with my big coti. its a very hard stone. and it does not relase much slurry on its own. and even with the little slurry stone its hard to get some slurry going. i think this one tops out at maybe 8k at most.

it creates a fairly good kasumi finish, this one is full of stray scratches (that you can't see in the pic), but i know i can get it scratch free with some work.
the suehiro green g8 creates a better finish. easier, faster. and cheaper.

when sharpening it feels very hard. and you can feel when some of the garnets gets dislodged because it feels like a grain of sand under the edge. all these little pings. edges are very good. 

i got a slurry stone with one of my cotis that is a much lighter yellow, almost white, and its much much creamier and softer. if i was getting a new coti it would that type.


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## SolidSnake03 (Mar 7, 2021)

Can attest to this method as well, I use a bit of spit or a small nagura to raise a fairly thick/heavy slurry and it cuts fast, like really fast. The slurry darkens to a gray to dark gray with metal debris in a handful of strokes

my coticule seems to be on the softer/faster side


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## childermass (Mar 7, 2021)

inferno said:


> tell us more! why is the wästikivi stones coarser? they cut them in a certain way?
> 
> these are not so hard to buy here in scandinavia.



Phyllite stones offer different finesse depending on the orientation of the crystal structure. It’s possible to get three different grades of different grit out of these rocks depending on how you cut them.

Here is a part of the third of the documents @cotedupy linked above that explains this:




This document is a great read for everyone interested in European natural stones.


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## inferno (Mar 7, 2021)

very cool. maybe i need to get me one of the finnish stones.


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## inferno (Mar 7, 2021)

here is my coti types. as you can see there is a big difference between these. 
the big one is very hard. and so is the one with the purple spots, but the whitish clean one, yeah thats the type you want imo.


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## childermass (Mar 7, 2021)

inferno said:


> very cool. maybe i need to get me one of the finnish stones.


You won’t regret it, a big plus is that they are very affordable.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

Belgian Blue - I have three coticule/bb combos. 2 are glued and one is natural. It is my all-time favorite stone. 

There is some more info and pictures about my coticules in @inferno 's razor thread here.





__





lets have a new razor thread.


Another way I get edges is like this. Did one today. Took a coticule and killed the edge (on the side of the stone passing once or twice, I did it twice). Made some medium thick slurry and did some back and forth half strokes until it got fairly darker. If it's fast, this doesn't take more...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com





Back before the pandemic and I traveled to see family and friends a couple of times per year I would take a couple of these guys to hone up people's knives. Rub them together for slurry. I still don't think any natural stone I have tried is suitable for coarse knife work but this piece of Belgian Blue comes the closest. I can raise a real burr with it even on softer steels. It cuts edge bevels great. I don't have any exotic supersteel knives and neither do any of my friends and family. But I will say they work great on cheap stainless, vintage carbon, white, blue, vg10, 52100, etc. If you finish with some propylene glycol or mineral oil and real light pressure you can get a real shiny finish akin to about a Shapton Glass 4k. Here is what it looks like dry. Those scratches are from a diamond card I hit it with. It had some gunk on it. 







Here's another shot of the polish job. If you really worked at it and built a nice slurry you can up the polish game considerably. But with some good firm pressure and some saliva (thanks for the tip @Benuser ) the Blue can cut like a coarse stone. This one, on both the blue side and coticule side is exceptionally fast. I have handled a few dozen of these things and not seen another close to it. You can see the nice uniform coarse scratch marks.






The coticule side of this stone is also very fast. It self slurries a lot material but is still some how hard enough to be fairly dish resistant. I haven't used knives on it much but with razors it can do all of the work of synthetics from 1k - 12k in about 50 laps. Even with very hard Swedish and Japanese razors. It is not my creamiest coticule finisher and it is still too slow to cut the primary bevel if there's any damage, but it is absolutely unbelievable at going from a raw bevel to prefinished stage. This is with plain water and no slurry after just a few strokes. There's a lot better pictures in that razor thread I linked above.






And here's some polish shots. Super shiny core. Nice cloudy cladding. I would be using this in my knife progression all of the time if it wasn't my absolute favorite razor stone. The edges are superb.









Those are the last of what I would consider my coarse to midrange non Japanese naturals. I did a couple of finishers too just because I was in the mood.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

The Chinese 12K, aka Guangxi river rock, aka the People's Hone of Indeterminate Grit

This stone reminds me more of a J-nat than any of the others. The arks and coticule families just act fundamentally different to my aoto, aizu, suita, hideriyama, oochi, etc. But this Chinese one feels pretty similar to my hideryiama, even smells a lot like it. Nice earthy muddy aromoa. It is hard but releases some material. I can raise a slurry with tomo or diamond card. I bought it for razors but I actually like it better for knives. Nice tight scratch pattern that with good contrast. Core steel is not super shiny or mirror, but it doesn't look bad.






Vintage translucent butterscotch Arkansas with milled aluminum case. 

Another one of my prized possessions. This is my favorite finisher for heavier grind razors.


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## stringer (Mar 7, 2021)

Owyhee Jasper. This is my favorite finisher for hollow ground razors. It feels like someone took the hardest arkansas stone on the planet and baked it in the center of the sun for a billion years. And it smells like it too. There must be sulfur in it or something. I don't know but when you are using it smells like your clothes after you have been around a bonfire for a few hours. The razor edges this thing generates are insane. The only way I can go up in sharpness from here is diamonds and cbn paste and stuff like that. I don't think it would make much of a polisher though, because I don't think it really removed any of the scratches from the previous stones, it just made them shinier. 











In conclusion, After about an hour of sharpening with my coarsest natural stones, I put a nice kasumi finish on the bevels but I did not come anywhere close to fixing the edge damage and micro-chipping that would take about thirty seconds to fix with a Shapton Pro 1000. Coarse naturals have their place in polishing progressions. And I believe that they are excellent at putting different types of finishing touches on edges where you have already done most of the heavy lifting with something else. The Belgian Blue and Coticule is pretty special. Still nowhere near as fast as synthetics, but far closer to anything else I have tried. I would take the edge off of any of these stones for Chef knives except the Turkish oil stone. That thing has not impressed me. I look forward to trying more random unknown naturals because I have an eBay problem.


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## cotedupy (Mar 7, 2021)

Great stuff Stringer, Childermass, Inferno et al.!

Something interesting in terms of the ones I have - if I was trying to get a knife as sharp as I can possibly make it (not saying much really) I'd probably use a progression that ends with a slate followed by my Maruoyama Shiro Suita. 

When a Nakiri I sharpened the other day managed to cut a hair I had purposefully blunted it earlier to try sharpening on just a slate, no other stone. I think stone 1 in the picture below. My wife then blunted it slightly trying to cut frozen beef (!), so I touched it up on the jnat, and that was when it got to cutting a single hair.


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## GorillaGrunt (Mar 20, 2021)

Here's a stone I picked up from Alibaba; it's not the stone i thought it was as i was trying to find a particular one mined in Pakistan but I'm not sure it's from China either. Based on the edge and bevel scratch pattern I'd say it's around equivalent in particle size to an Aizu but faster cutting. 

Anyone used one of the jasper or agate ones? I'd think intuitively that that would be a good surface to sharpen on with some nagura slurry but i could be entirely wrong.


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## PotterMcMuck (Mar 21, 2021)

This is an interesting thread, but difficult to answer because any natural stone, by nature, will be different from any other stone (even from the same mine). And then of course there's the skill of the person sharpening that comes into play (for example, I have a lot of experience sharpening my straight razors, but I'm still relatively new to sharpening kitchen knives). So it's interesting to think about, but not really useful. Experiments can very useful for yourself because they are with your specific stones and knives, but unless someone is going to buy those stones, the experiments don't (or shouldn't) mean a lot to them. But I'm a big fan of thought experiments, so here are my results:

I have a decent collection of razor quality stones (unfortunately, they're mostly razor size, as well), and I've tried to sharpen my knives on most of them, with varying degrees of success. With both razors and carbon steel knives, I start with synthetics finish on naturals. With stainless steel, I usually keep it simple and stick to synthetics (unless I feel like experimenting).

My current favourite knife finisher is a level 4 Nakayama that I originally bought for razors but didn't like the edges it gave - but for carbon knives, it's incredible (in my opinion). I find it's a little too fine for stainless steel, though. 

I got good knife edges from a coticule I bought from Ardennes a few years ago. I found it was slightly too coarse to finish razors (maybe 6-8k), but I was happy with the knife edges. Unfortunately, it was a little too small to be comfortable to sharpen knives (6"x1.5"), so I sold it. 

I know I tried sharpening knives on my BBW, but I honestly don't remember if I liked the results or not. The only BBW I have is on a natural coticule combo stone that's about 5"x1", so all I remember was that it was too small to be comfortable to use. 

I tried a large (8"x3"), slightly coarser (~8k) thuringian slate hone, but found that it was too slow and too fine for knives. I have a couple of finer razor thuris (probably 10-12k), but didn't bother to try sharpening knives with those, I knew they would be way too fine and slow, and also too small (5"x1" and 6"x2"). 

I have a level 5 Aiiwatani that I haven't tried knives on yet, and probably won't. It's an amazing razor finisher, so I doubt it would be good for knives - I also want to keep it pristine. And I haven't tried my Arkansas stones yet - I just haven't gotten around to it, but I'm curious about the results.


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## Mathias Z. (Apr 15, 2022)

Benuser said:


> Belgian Blue Brocken is a by-product of Coticule mining and contains the same abrasives, in a much lesser amount. With Coticule you can, depending on the slurry you raise, cover a huge reach of grits, from 1500 to 15k. Not so with the Brocken, which stays at about 4k. The round form of the abrasives allows a very easy deburring, as it will abrade a burr without creating a new one. I use it for deburring and reviving an edge.



don´t think that the BBW is different to the normal Coticule. Ther garnets size is a bit coarser and not so concentrated and packed as with the Yellow Belgian Whetstone. But the range exceeds 4000 in my opinion and is more likely closer to 6000. At least the specimen I own. Who cares. Sharp is sharp.


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## Mathias Z. (Apr 15, 2022)

As for a touch up: Dalmore Blue, BBW, La Lorraine, Washita, Shapton 4k, Naniwa Professional 5k, Turkey Stone, Magog, Hindostan, ... everything that is fast with slurry but does not create a big burr, but only a fine one.


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