Whetstones and grits. A short comparison, Rika 5k, King, Suehiro, Morihei and Miyagoshi

Thanks for stopping by!
Timestamps:
00:00 - introductions
05:20 - Morihei hishiboshi 4000grit
07:44 - King 4000grit
13:01 - Suehiro Debado Ld-601 4000grit
15:45 - Miyagoshi Ebisu 4000grit
20:45 - Rika 5000grit
23:50 - Conclusions
So one of the questions i get asked the most are on so called grit-progression. I wanted to make a video highlighting why that is such a difficult question to answer properly. I mean, you can give an indication, and the numbers often speak for themselves. But a real in depth answer is hard, given how different stones with similar grits are. This is what ill be looking at in this one.
The Stones im using are the Morihei hishiboshi 4k, King 4k, Miyagoshi ebisu(4k), Suehiro Ld601(4k) and Rika 5k.

[@artexner6704]

Terrific and very instructive video. I really enjoy vicariously experiencing some of these lesser known and uncommon (at least in N.A., the Morihei and Miyagoshi are pretty tough to find) stones. Great audio on this one, btw. I think I'm getting a bit lazy/impatient myself, as I find I don't pull out many soaking stones these days - so I have to watch folks like you to remind myself what I'm missing out on. And I appreciate the comment from @enobil as well - when I get up to the 6-8k stones I find my edges lack the bite I want, so I've taken to dropping back down to a 1 or 2k stone for a couple of edge leading strokes on one side which does wonders for performance. Likely a flaw in my technique there somewhere but *shrug*, it's working for me. This is a go-to channel for me; your work and technique is really coming along and that stone collection is making me a little jealous ;)

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

I think going "as fine as possible" is just a consequence of always wanting that little bit extra. And i totally agree that you loose some of the bite as you go that high. I stick to 3k for comercial sharpening, at least of stainless. And on certain knives, and polishing jobs i pull out the finer ones, and pharhaps the naturals. I really appretiate your feedback, and i just love interacting with people like yourself that takes the time to comment. The collection must grow (regardless of what my wife claims)

[@jeffhicks8428]

Always great to see I am not alone in my whetstone hording. IMO Grit ratings are arbitrary and only relevant within each product line of stones. You have to know what is what, how it works and what it's used for. The other thing is different kinds of stone will work differently. Grit rating, and even abrasive particle size itself, isn't the whole story. The binder, the hardness, the friability will all determine what kind of scratches it leaves, meaning the depth as well. So that is two layers of variability, regardless of the arbitrary claimed ratings you could have two stones with nearly identical abrasive particle size and they can leave totally different finish on steel. This is why highly friable stones like the king or cerax leaves that sandblasted looking finish, and it's also why naniwa SS polishes so well. The grit itself will always be a distribution range, only really high end stones can actually guarantee to the user that the abrasives in the stone will be within some specified tolerance. For example I think in their sub micron rated stones Shapton claims the tolerance for particles is .01 micron. That is uncommon and for sure increases costs. In their 30k stone that would be about 2% variation tolerance.
Anyway the look it leaves on the steel, imo higher grits are easier because after a point you are just creating a mirror. Sure the performance and feel of stone varies but the end result is analogous. A mirror is a mirror. What is more difficult is getting an even and consistent scratch pattern which is aesthetically pleasing for lower grit stones. IMO the Chosera stones do an excellent job with this aspect. You can tell they carefully tuned it because every single stone in the Chosera lineup from 400 to 10k leaves a top quality scratch pattern in the steel. My biggest gripe about the chosera aside from magnesium which is very fragile and delicate as a binder, but it's what gives them such a unique feeling, anyway my biggest complaint is the don't make anything below 400. You have to use naniwa traditional stone, which is soaker and it's also green silicon carbide based. They used to have a 320 but they don't seem to make that one any more. Anyway, yeah I have some cerax stones as well. I really really like the 5k and 6k. I think the 6k is the cerax and the 5k is rika, I think, not sure. Anyway the finish my 5k and 6k leaves is more like a 1k chosera or 2k shapton pro kind of look. I think that's the 6k cerax. The 5k rika one leaves something a little bit brighter, more like the 2k sp, maybe a bit brighter but not much. Nowhere near something like a 5k shapton. For sure not a finishing stone. I really enjoy using those stones. My favorite one is the 700 and 5k rika or 6k cerax combo. I would like the try the Debado stones, I don't have any, but they are expensive and I have so many stones already I'm running out of room and get judged every time I get a new one.
On a side note, personally I like very fast polishing stones. I think the SG are great for this, that's 6k and above thought the 4k leave a quite bright finish too it's technically a sharpener not a finisher and does have some cloudyness in the finish. Both the 5k and 10k chosera are excellent. 10k chosera is like a little softer, little more friable, lot more thirsty version of 12k sp, but I love that thing. Maybe that is just my brain tricking me that such an expensive thing must be good but I believe it really is excellent. SS are ofc the ones made for this. For sure slower, or you could say more gentle. Softer. All very good. These are for sure the best finishers I have aside from straight 0 to 3 micron diamond powder mixed with oil and applied to wood. The most common grit in my collection is likely 400 aka medium course or around 2k aka fine medium. That's what I like. I like stones like the 400 chosera and 3k SG. Thought technically I'm sure what I have the most is finishers, true finishers. The stated grit can vary but I consider all of these basically interchangeable. They're all for finishing. I have too many. 11 of them.

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

Its kinda sad that the debados are so expensive, but they are rather large stones though. I really like mine, and the ld21 is my favourite coarse atm. Sorry for the delay, but thanks for the comment. i really appretiate it :)

[@enobil]

Thanks, it was great to see all these 4k-5k stones in action together with your comments. On the suehiro sometime I might get a debado md-400 4000 stone, it is extra wide and splash n go. I also have the morihei hishiboshi 4000 but usually I go for karasu 9000 on good steels or leave at 1-2k for very soft steels. If I remember correctly, morihei stones are hybrid e.g. natural stone powder embedded. Feels nicer with raising slurry first for me. The biggest difference I could see between w/ slurry and w/o slurry was shapton 5k though. But at the end, by newspaper cutting test and microsope, the biggest difference was always coming from a strop with a fine e.g. green compound, haven't tried cbn emulsions etc yet. I think strop is essential for straight razor sharpening but for kitchen knives, all of these stones in your video would give a very nice edge with some nice bite. I'm also considering arashiyama 6000 in the future, kitayama 8k IMO too aggressively polishes. Expecting a better bite from arashiyama 6k. Not sure if you reviewed that stone before. Enjoying your channel a lot, keep up the great work 👍

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

I agree with all of your statements. And to be fair i usually raise slurry on my moriheis as well as my kings most of the time. I was a little bit out of it, as i just dropped my camera before shooting. I cant close the lens properly, but ironically its as the quality of the shot actually went up 🤔. So i guess my filming and editing skills definately need some work, but i try to improve a bit for each video. Thanks for the feedback, im loving the comments :)

[@GustavoFerBel]

Awesome video!

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

Thank you for the kind comment

[@2076649]

I have a cheap 1000/6000 stone from china, blue and white, way coarser then 6k, i can jump to the rika 5000, or would be good to use ouka 3000 First?

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

For regular sharpening there would be no need for the ouka in between. But as a progression for polishing, i would consider it

[@jiahaotan696]

Hey, just wondering if you've experimented with wide bevel progressions also. I don't really seem to have seen that in any of your videos I've watched haha

[@lofotenknifeworks2278]

Hey. thanks for taking the time to comment. i actually tried shooting a polishing progression vid a few weeks ago. but after a few days of shooting with the kids all over, it was just not possible to put together a decent video from the scraps i had. Right now im closing up this school-year, but when summer kicks off i will start filming again, and i might just give it another go :)

[@jiahaotan696]

@@lofotenknifeworks2278 Cool. As with Jeff, I find that talking about stones with respect to just their edge-giving property is a little one-dimensional... I find nowadays that just the three categories of natural stones (coarse/med/finishing) is usually enough in my mind for sharpening purposes.
Then how the stone performs for polishing matters for what purpose I will mostly use it for. Is it splash-and-go? Is it friable and soft so I can use it for convex bevels without the ugly streaks that ruin a kasumi finish? etc.

[@hoggif]

Grit progression has no one answer. I've done 800 to 6000 with same manufacturer with softer steel. For anything hard, I prefer small jumps. My go-to seems to be 800/1k-3k/4k-8k. For razors a lot finer after that.