u/ApplesArePeopleToo

I just received this lovely little 33x150mm coticule from a chap whose father, a retired barber, had recently passed on. I had a good chat with him about his dad’s history - he migrated to Australia from Italy in the 1960s, and used the stone to hone his straight razors.

It’s lovely to know the history of the stone. I’m going to make a nice box for it, and write his dad’s name inside to honour his memory.

Is there any way to learn more about the stone itself? I understand there a different grades or layers of coticule, but that’s as far as my knowledge goes.

And what’s best strategy for the dishing? I can flatten it with SiC powder, but should I just leave it?

And what’s the verdict on oil vs water for coticules?

I made another whetstone box this arvo, this time for my vintage Yellow Lake Welsh slate. This one uses northern silky oak (Cardwellia sublimis), and finished in hard shellac again.

First try at making a box for one of my natural whetstones. This is for probably my favourite natural stone, a 9x2” vintage Pike Lily White Washita.

The box is made of figured Australian blackwood and Tasmanian oak, finished in hard shellac. The lid is held on with magnets.

It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s still my prettiest whetstone box!

Years ago when I was first learning to freehand sharpen, I got some cheap Kiwi knives to practice on. I fell in love with the Kiwi No. 21 Thai chef’s knife.

I loved the height for scooping up ingredients, the light weight, the thin blade, and the gentle belly for doing rock cuts. It’s just a great vegetable prep knife. The downsides, of course, are that it’s made of terrible steel (50-55HRC stainless), and the handle is about as primitive as it gets.

It’s long been retired to a bottom drawer somewhere, but ever since I’ve been searching for a higher-end replacement. It doesn’t seem to be a common blade shape, but I’ve seen things sort of similar called kiritsuke cleavers, tall bunkas, large santokus, or chuka bocho. It makes it very hard to search for.

So I’m looking for recommendations for something with a tall blade (60mm+), lazer-ish blade profile, a bit of a belly, about 180mm edge length, and ideally in a good stainless steel I can sharpen on natural stones (ginsan, AEB-L, 14c28n etc). I don’t mind if it’s got a pointed k-type tip or a nakiri-style tip or otherwise, as long as it’s got some belly. My preference would be a wa handle, but a western handle would be OK.

My budget’s up to AU$500, and I’m in Australia.

Please help me find my grail!

Left to right:

- Fujiwara FKM gyuto, santoku and petty in AUS-8: my first ‘good’ knives, bought 8 years ago from Massdrop, back when they had good deals. They’re ‘entry level’ and only AUS-8, but they’ve served me really well.
- TwoSun santoku in 14c28n: an Xmas present from my Dad a couple of years ago. Nice fit and finish, and I like the steel. The blade is thicker behind the edge than I like, though, so I tend to use this if I have to hack up a pumpkin or something tough.
- Xituo santoku Damascus-clad VG-10 full tang blade from AliExpress, which I made my own handle for from ringed gidgee and macadamia timber.
- Xituo kiritsuke Damascus-clad VG-10 full tang blade from AliExpress, which I made a macadamia handle for. This and the santoku are surprisingly good. They hold an edge well, the blades aren’t too thick and the geometry is decent.
- Ginsan gyuto stick-tang blade from Aliexpress, with another macadamia and gidgee handle. I really like this blade, although I didn’t get the balance right on the handle I made for it - it needed to be a bit heavier to balance the blade. Takes a great edge and easy to sharpen. This one’s made me a ginsan convert.
- Not pictured: various Victorinox paring knives, etc.

I’m tempted to upgrade from the FKMs to a set of nicer Japanese knives in ginsan. But really, they’re nice to use and they do the job just fine, and I have a sentimental attachment to them. I love sharpening, so I don’t care about the edge retention of AUS-8 (not that it’s been a problem with these, given I’m just a home cook).

But I’m sure you all know the upgrade temptation!

I got these the other day and finally had a moment to try them out; the Naniwa Gouken Arata 400, 800 and 3000 grit.

Apparently, they’re the same stones as Naniwa’s Chosera/Chocera Pro line, but slightly thinner at 15mm (the same thickness as Shapton Kuromakus).

I wanted to try how the famed Naniwa Choseras were compared to my Kuromakus, which I really like, but the real-deal Choseras are about 2.5x the price of the Kuromakus.

But I found these guys sold from Amazon Japan, which are more or less the same price as the Shaptons, so I thought I’d give ‘em a try.

First impressions sharpening a 14c28n santoku: they cut about the same speed as my Kuromakus, but they’re certainly softer. I definitely get the ‘silky’ feedback people talk about. I’m not sure that I like it more or less than the Kuros, but it’s definitely different.

The santoku was already pretty sharp (because I’m on r/sharpening), but had been used a couple of times and wouldn’t slice paper towel any more. Going through the three grits, then stropping on 2.5 micron diamond and leather got it back to slicing paper towel (as good as I ever manage, anyway).

All in all, I like ‘em! Much better value than the regular Choseras/Chocera Pros, at least buying them in Australia.

I’ll have to do some one-on-one comparisons with my Kuromakus sometime. I’ve got the 1k, 2k, 5k and 8k of those.

I just got some Naniwa Gouken Arata stones from Amazon, and unfortunately the storage case on the 400 grit was broken in shipping. Amazon has refunded it, and the stone is fine, but now I’m trying to find a replacement case.

I know Sharpening Supplies sells them, but the shipping cost from the US to Australia is horrendous.

I can just get a new stone with the refund, but it seems stupid if all I need is the case!

Does anyone know of another source for these?

This the cleanest vintage natural whetstone I’ve ever got. AU$50 for a vintage Norton SB8 soft Arkansas in a beautiful handmade box.

Now the trick will be cleaning it up without losing the Norton stamp on the side. Any suggestions? When I used Simple Green on my HB8, it dissolved nearly all the stamp before I realised my mistake.

I just got a Sharpal 220# diamond lapping plate on special from Amazon during Prime Day. This thing is a heavy beast, and the extra size over standard diamond plates is very handy.

It did a nice job on my Shapton Kuromaku 1000 and 2000.

I thought I’d give a Chinese natural whetstone a go, and the Songhua/Sungari stones from AliExpress seemed to have a decent rep, so I ordered one.

Except I accidentally ordered two. So now I have a particularly large nagura, I guess.

Anyway, they arrived with un-dressed faces, complete with saw marks. Couple of corners chipped in shipping, but nothing serious.

I lapped one face and bevelled the edges with SiC powder on a stone benchtop offcut, finishing with 120 grit, but working it quite a bit so it had broken down to something finer. These things are really hard, so it took quite a bit of work.

I tried them out with water on an AUS-8 kitchen knife. They actually cut quite fast with a little pressure, and formed a small burr without much trouble. On first impression, the way they cut reminded me of my hard Ark or Turkey stone.

People seem to put these at 4000-5000 grit JIS. Mine felt a bit coarser than that, but that could just be the surface finish I put on them still being pretty rough. I imagine they’ll smooth out a bit with use.

Apart from cutting well, they’re also a good size, and quite pretty! I didn’t need two, but I’m happy to have them in the rotation.

Just took delivered of these two Ebay scores; a Smith’s soft and hard Arkansas pair. They’re both 8”x2”, with the hard at 1/2” thick and the hard at 1”.

I’m not sure on their vintage, but they look reasonably modern. They need a clean and some lapping, but they’re in good condition otherwise.

I’m interested to see how they compare to my vintage lily white Washitas and my translucent hard black Arkansas.

A family member brought round their two favourite knives for me to sharpen, a pair of sadly neglected Globals. They had apparently only been sharpened once before, and it showed. I think whatever cutting capacity they still had was powered by all the chips.

I reprofiled them freehand on a 220/600 Sharpal diamond plate, then on to a Shapton Kuromaku 1000, Kuromaku 2000, and finished on a 2.5 micron diamond strop.

I’ve had a double sided boron carbide 800/ruby 3000 stone from AliExpress for a few years now. I’ve always liked the ruby side, but I could never get along with the boron. It felt glazed and glassy from brand new, and I figured I was somehow using it wrong, given all the praise u/hahaha786567565687 and others had for it.

But tonight I lapped it on a 220 grit diamond plate, and now I get it. I don’t know if it had some sort of crust on it from manufacturing or what, but now it feels great!

I’m really starting to like hard stones, and this one fits the bill. It’s maybe not quite as fast as my Shapton Kuromaku 1000, perhaps (I’ll need to do a head to head to confirm that though), but it’s not slow, and I can tell it’s not going to need flattening for aaaaages.

I’m tempted to get one of the 400 grit boron bench stones for reprofiling the soft stainless knives I periodically get handed by family and neighbours.

From buying old oilstones, I’ve amassed a bunch of gunky old stone holder boxes. I’ve cleaned up the stones OK, but some of the boxes are quite nice and I’d like to keep them.

I’ve scrubbed one of the cleaner ones with Simple Green, but the dirtier ones would require a good soak, which wouldn’t be good for the wood.

Has anyone had any success cleaning all the old oil and swarf off old boxes without wrecking the wood?

What are the best stainless steels for knives on which natural whetstones still work well? Obviously we’re ruling out the usual supersteels, but do mid-range options with some carbides like VG10, AUS10, or 440C sharpen OK on naturals?

14C28N and AEB-L seem like good options, too - apparently they’re low carbide, but still good performers.

The photo’s just for illustration, but it’s a Damascus-clad VG10 blade I made a handle for. I’ve got a few VG10 knives, but I haven’t used them extensively on my natural stones yet. I mainly used my naturals on AUS8, cheap soft stainless, high carbon steel, and vintage HSS woodworking tools.

I took a visit yesterday to a local mineral and gem dealer. The place is absolute heaven for a rock and fossil nerd like me. I was there to find some Australian rocks that might work as whetstones.

What I came away with was a slice of ‘snakeskin jasper’ from the Pilbara in Western Australia, and a few different bits of zebrastone/astronomite/primordial stone(more on that later).

The jasper (top in the group photo) is a banded iron formation made of alternating seams of hematite, jaspilite, quartz, and chalcedony. It’s from a 2.5 billion year old formation. I saw ‘jasper’ and figured it would be some sort of microcrystalline quartz and might work. I haven’t tried it yet.

The zebrastone/astronomite/primordial stone is a banded siltstone from the Kimberly in Western Australia. It’s a fine-grained siliceous argillite made of quartz, sericite, and clay minerals like kaolinite, supposedly 60-70% silica.

The different names are marketing terms for the different patterns, which I believe occur in different aged layers of the deposits. The zebrastone is the one with big spots on the left of the group photo, and it’s about 670m years old. The astronomite is the spotty one on the right, geologically basically the same thing as zebrastone.

The ‘primordial stone’ is part of the same deposit, I think, but harder and about 1.2 billion years old. I chose to start with this one.

I roughly flattened the slab on a concrete path, then spent a bunch of time on it with a SiC flattening brick. It took a while, but it’s not a particularly hard stone, so it wasn’t too much work. It generated a purple-maroon slurry.

I tried it out with a soft stainless steel Victorinox paring knife. It made a small burr after a moderate number of passes. I’d call it about a medium speed cutter for a natural stone.

The grit is quite fine. My first guess would be somewhere in the 3000-5000 ballpark, but I’ll have to use it more to get a better feel for it. I haven’t used any other siltstones before, so unfortunately I can’t compare it to Jnats or anything.

So long story short, I’m pretty happy with how this experiment turned out. It’s a beautiful looking stone, and it actually works as a whetstone!

I snagged two naturals at an antique store this week, both with boxes, and just finished cleaning them up. I got overenthusiastic and forgot to take before photos, unfortunately.

One is a classic Washita. Unlabelled, but it looks very similar to my Norton Lily White, albeit a bit smaller. It’s quite dished on one side, so I lapped the other side flat.

The other is some kind of hard slate. It had a few gouges in it, despite ‘for razors only’ being engraved on the box. It generated a light brown slurry when I lapped it. And thoughts on what it is?

I had the perfect opportunity to put my new (to me) natural stones through their paces today. I’d asked my neighbour if she needed any of her knives sharpened, and she brought over the usual ‘non-knife person’ cheap stainless kitchen knives with a concave edge and less bite than a teaspoon.

But in addition, she brought over a collection of vintage French pocket knives given to her by an uncle - Laguioles and similar makes. All well and truly blunt, but in good old high carbon steel - just the thing for natural stones.

Pictured left to right, coarse to fine, all used with oil; Hindostan, Pike lily white Washita, Turkey stone, Norton hard Arkansas.

I was really pleasantly surprised by the Hindostan. I reckon it’s somewhere around 800 grit, cuts surprisingly fast, and leaves a nice toothy edge.

The Washita is great too, deserving of its reputation. It followed the Hindostan well. Somewhere around 1500-2000 grit, at a guess.

The Turkey stone was good too, but fairly similar to the Washita, perhaps a little finer. Very thirsty for oil.

The hard Ark did the hard Ark thing very nicely. It generated a burr with some pressure, and honed well with light strokes.

For anyone interested in the outcome of my last, less successful, batch of mystery stones, I’ve cleaned up the two that looked like naturals and lapped one of their faces with 120 grit SiC powder.

I’m still not sure what I’ve got. Apologies for the crummy photos, but any thoughts from the experts would be appreciated!