MasterClass Combination Whetstone, 18 x 6.5 cm (7" x 2.5")

In summary , this works and it have given a new lease of life to some blunt knives and im still a novice at sharpening with loads of room for improvement. It is a good quality dual grit stone, Inexpensive when you look at some others.New found passion passion for cooking yet quickly came to realise our knives were noticeably blunt and some new ones ( bought from a super market) didn't really appear sharp enough. Have a ceramic pull through knife sharpener but it never really seemed to work for me.Started researching knife sharpening and it was - , information overload , I didn't know where to begin, so many types of whetsones, different grits, different angles of sharpening, different sharpening approaches, Rockwell scale, multiple experts.take on things.After a while I was able to filter out a lot and came up with " you need to use a whetstone to really get a good sharp edge" , " it takes time to perfect the sharpening approach,it isn't as easy as it looks " . "Depending on the blade different grit whetstones are best" .Also I came to learn early on that I didnt want to spend a lot of money on whetstones as where I am at this point in time it would be money down the drain. I just wont get the benefit from them until I know how to properly use the right ones and have the quality of knife to benefit from them.I saw this on line and felt the price/quality vs my experience and what I can get out of it --- the balance was right.Read the instructions, checked out youtube and picked a few videos on how to use a whetstone ( out of the thousands) and stuck with them.Soaked the whetstone then started . First couple of uses didn't really work but that was more to the fact my technique was not good, the knives didn't pass the paper test ( slicing a piece of paper). I persevered and as my technique improved so did the sharpness of the blades I was sharpening. Already they are sharper than ever before and I know my technique is still lacking and needs a lot of improvement, the knives I practiced on can get sharper.Any tips if your using one for the first time....First use on a cheap knife first in order to practice. When I started I scratched the sides of the blades, got angles wrong, blunted a blade initially. For me at least it isn't as easy as the experts made it look on youtube.I had to use the stone a lot longer than expected ( per youtube experts saying how many strokes you need) in order to get a decent sharpness.Do soak the stone in water and keep it wet.Cheaper blades loose sharpness quickly and need sharpening again, but flip side is you get to practice more.Try to filter the information on knives whetsotnes and how to sharpenI got a knife sharpening guide to help keep the 15 degree angle which European style blades are set to. Though it does mark side of knife.

Most people will buy a 'convenience' sharpener – typically a block of plastic with one or two grooves in it, where you draw the knife through a slit in the plastic. Unlike a whetstone where water is a central 'ingredient', you use convenience sharpeners dry which is part of the problem – the latter are very hard on knives. They can damage them as they sharpen them. The best way to sharpen a knife is using a whetstone like this one.I am into bushcraft and I have reviewed a number of Bushcraft items on Amazon such as knives. I use a whetstone to sharpen both bushcraft knives and our kitchen knives.There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing you how to use one.Using a whetstone takes skill – the good news is that the fundamentals can be established quickly. However you will not get it right first time so I strongly suggest that you practise using a cheap knife – not a Global, for example! In fact, I wouldn’t use this whetstone at all for expensive knives.Whetstones like this are a sandwich of a coarse (low number – 400 in this case) and fine (high number – 1000 in this case) sharpening stone. You start with the coarse side and then flip it over to the sharp side.The whetstone doesn’t do the sharpening alone – it is the slurry that does it. Small particles from the stone mixed with water do the sharpening. So, to start you have to immerse the stone in water. The whetstone will give off bubbles as water penetrates it. When it stops bubbling you are ready to start.With traditional whetstones, you had to put them on a damp towel to keep them still. With modern ones like this, the whetstone is mounted on a rubber base so there is no need to do that. It is a simple but effective solution. The base is removable (necessary as you have to flip the stone over).When you use the whetstone, you will see grey streaks where the knife has been. This is fine particles of metal coming off the blade.The two grades on this whetstone (400 & 1000) are fine for sharpening inexpensive knives. Japanese whetstones have finer grades – they can be, for example, 1000/3000 or 1000/6000 (they start where this whetstone ends because Japanese kitchen knives are razor sharp when you buy them – you have to be very careful if you pick one up in a shop. You can cut yourself while barely feeling it cut). If you have an expensive kitchen knife I would buy a Japanese whetstone – this whetstone is too coarse for expensive knives.Incidentally, whetstones will not sharpen serrated knives.Using a whetstone requires a repetitive action but it is very rewarding and, once in the rhythm, relaxing. It is rather ‘wax on, wax off’**. In the summer, outside, in the fresh air with nothing but trees and greenery in front of you, there is something special about using it.A whetstone like this is good for learning on – use an inexpensive whetstone and an inexpensive knife. It is a massive improvement on using a slit-in-plastic convenience sharpener.** If that went over your head, you are too young to remember The Karate Kid [DVD] [2005]. Well worth watching.

Well, very fast despatch...that's always a bonus. Stone came wrapped in shrink wrap inside a cardboard box and well wrapped in bubble wrap. The stone is very porous and can be used with oil as well as water. The 400 grit side is coarse and perfect for re-shaping the edge of a knife, I found the 400 grit stone to be surprisingly soft but very effective at creating a new angle. For finishing the edge the other side of the stone is 1000 grit...that is still quite coarse for tuning a fine blade. It works a treat however and I found the 1000 grit side worked very well with an 8000 Nagura stone to create a slurry. This is a great stone for re-shaping a knife blade, or if you have a particularly dull knife and would be a great coarser grit stone to accompany a finer stone of 6000-8000 grit for the final polish. When I compared the 1000 grit side with a Japanese water stone of 1000 grit, the Japanese one was much harder and smoother....I get the feeling this stone from Master Class is synthetic, it's still a good stone but I still think you'd need a good quality fine grit Japanese waterstone to give the final hone and polish. I can confirm that after several months of use both sides of this stone are very diminished in levelness....the more expensive Japanese stone that I bought at the same time and use as frequently is still totally level....and also very effective!

Questa pietra per affilare coltelli ha due facce, una a grana piu' grossa e l'altra a grana piu' fine, e una base in gomma anti scivolo, sulla quale va appoggiata. Prima dell'utilizzo va immersa in acqua fino a quando non smette di fare le bollicine. Durante l'affilatura va comunque inumidita, cosi' da rendere piu' facili le passate sul filo della lama. Ho rigenerato dei vecchi coltelli che ormai non tagliavano quasi piu'. E' un oggetto molto utile, se usato come si deve, e fa risparmiare un sacco di soldi, quindi lo consiglio a tutti!!

sublime la pierre est d'une qualité irréprochable le grain est superbe. mes couteaux me remercient de cette achat et mon katana aussi. attention tous de même pour ceux qui peuvent rechercher une pierre de finition ce n'est pas celle la. celle ci est faite pour affûté sans modifié l'angle de la lame.

Buena compra, efectivo para afilar cuchillos, y quedan filosos por bastante tiempo, por lo que es una herramienta bastante util!!

Muy buena piedra calidad/precio, cumple correctamente con su función si no eres un experto en la materia. La cara oscura devasta cualquier muesca o defecto de la hoja, y la blanca la pule dejando una terminación bastante "fina". Obviamente también depende de la dureza y calidad del acero que uses, para un cuchillo "normal" tipo Arcos o similar es perfecta, si te vas ya a cuchillos profesionales quizás se quedara un poco justa. La base cumple su función reguleras, ya que en cuanto se moja y haces un poco de fuerza , patina.

Bonne pierre. Un petit doute sur la pertinence de l'étiquetage des deux faces. La face qualifiée de fine semble être la face qualifiée de dure et vice et versa. Mais à l'usage on s'y retrouve et l'aiguisage obtenu sera très satisfaisant.