Whetstone Cutlery Sided, Gray Knife Stone-Dual 400/1000 Grit Wet Block-Sharpens and Polishes Sharp Tools and Kitchen, Hunting, and Pocket Knives by Whetstone, 1-Pack, Limestone

I've been around a blade or two. My father was a master knife/ blade sharpener. Yes there or was such a profession. Hunters,K9 units, lumberjacks, veterinarians, lawn care professionals, hair stylists. Name the profession he sharpened it. He used large wheels and only his hands to hold and angle the blade correctly. After the wheels he gave all blades a wheatstone edge. If you brushed up against his blades by mistake you need a band-aid. This stone has two distinct sides. 400 and 1000 and come with a rubber base that keeps the stone from moving. This wheatstone is a great product and is for either a novice or professional. Learn how to use these types of stones and how to angle the knives so it will have a strong edge that's sharp and wont dull easily. Most of these stones including this one needs to be submerged in water before any sharpening is begun. Sharpen with blade going away from you. Once you learn sharpening it takes seconds to re apply an edge that will do the job. Please read all the directions. The quality of steel that is used in your knife matters how well it will sharpen and keep its edge. Once you learn how to use this type of stone you will always have a very,very sharp knife. So please be careful when cutting after learning how to sharpen a knife and keep a few band-aids in you cabinet. Myself included.

I've been using this stone for 2 months now to free hand sharpen my knives. The stone came perfectly flat. Just soak it for 15 minutes and wet it occasionally while sharpening and you're good to go. The 400 grit let's you put a burr on your knives fast and the 1000grit puts a nice polished edge on. Follow with a strop with green compound and you have a hair popping edge in less than 15 minutes. I bought a knife the other day that had a big gouge on the edge as if someone had hit another knife edge on it. I ground the edge completely flat with a grinding wheel so it was duller than a butter knife. It took me about 30 minutes with this stone to put a shaving sharp edge back on it from completely flat dull. You really don't need expensive stones to get amazing edges. This $13 stone will do it. I would also recommend a 6000 grit stone if you want a mirror edge, but it is not required for a shaving sharp edge. A strop however is a must have item. I would recommend to anyone just getting into sharpening to buy this stone and some really cheap used knives from a garage sale or flea market. Watch a few youtube videos and practice free hand sharpening and stick with it. In a month or 2 you will be putting incredible edges on knives in just minutes. You just have to build muscle memory to be consistent.

Great stone for keeping blades sharp when you do not have a machine.

I'm not a professional chef. I'm just a guy who thinks thick tomatoes are really gross. I used this on my cheap, dull Walmart kitchen knife, and suddenly that blade is slicing through tomatoes like Excalibur. I've had this thing sitting, unused, at the bottom of my pantry for 2 years after a binge buy on Amazon, while my knives became as dull as spoons. At some point - either shipping or my fault - a corner chipped off a bit. Today I decided to use it. Soaked it for a long time in water until it stopped bubbling, then dropped some water on it. Did a few swipes of my kitchen knife on the coarse side. Then dropped more water on it, and swiped the fine side until it worked up a bit of a slurry. I was slicing slivers off of tomatoes that were so thin, they were almost transparent. This is a huge improvement over yesterday, when I basically had to press down hard and rub tomatoes with the blunt edge to squash them into "slices." The real lesson I learned is: Apparently any idiot can use a rock to make a knife really sharp. This is a particularly reliable, nice rock. Worth the money.

This was the first time I decided to use a stone to sharpen my knives and was a bit skeptical about them but after watching a few videos online and reading some reviews I decided to buy one and try for myself. Glad I did because I have never had my knives as sharp as they are now. Found out the hard way too but that's another story lol. You DO have to have lots of patience because this is a process that takes time depending how dull your knife is. My knives were all really dull and each took about an hour to sharpen, literally! At first I thought that the stone just wasn't gonna sharpen the knives but I kept on going and going and slowly, I was getting that sharp edge everyone is talking about. By the time I was done with each knife, I couldn't believe how sharp they were!! And now keeping the knives sharp is a breeze and only takes a few passes to bring them back to razor sharpness. It's a great product and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a way to sharpen their knives. BTW, if you have never used a sharpening stone before, it is likely that you will make indentations to it due to the downward force applied to the knife. I would suggest to just find the sliding motion that works for you but to slide the knife across all of the stone surface area instead of just using one side of the other. This probably doesn't make any sense to you now but it will once you start using the stone.

I am very pleased with this wet stone. I actually purchased it to sharpen my disposable razors after watching a how-to video online. It works great and I can keep using the same razor over and over again just by sharpening it weekly with this stone. I love that it comes with rubber non-slip covers so the stone stays in place during use. They also serve as protectors on the stone when storing it. I tried using it wet and dry and found that with razors, it works best if the blades are wet and the stone is dry. I seem to get a very sharp, clean edge that way. I know it is sharp and ready to use when I look at the blades and they have a shiny, mirror-like finish. I highly recommend this to any guy or lady who wants to save money on expensive razors that get thrown away after one week. To sharpen: wet the blades and run along the stone about 5-6 times in the opposite direction of shaving (basically push the razor up along the stone - don't pull down). Do this on both the 400 grit side and the 1000 grit side.

I got this in the mail fairly quickly. Like other reviews say, it is quite soft. I can definitely see this wear down rather quickly, but it does that at the trade off in that it doesn't have nearly as much build up. That being said, I decided to soak it in water for a little while just in case. That proved to be mistake. I know soaking is normally for coarser stones, but I figured 1,000 grit was low enough. Apparently. not. The smooth side developed cracks at some point during my first use. It was soaked for 20 minutes or so. It didn't come with any instructions or warnings about it, so I went off hearsay. Bad idea. DO. NOT. SOAK. Use water or oil, definitely, and scrub it clean when you're done, but soaking seems to be risky. The reason I'm choosing 3 stars is that it developed some cracks before I even finished sitting down to sharpen my pocket knives. It still functions great, and the cracks are really small. Will this help get rid of nicks and leave a nice edge? Definitely. Even more so with a leather strop to finish the blade up. On the bright side, I might have two whetstones that are half the size at some point.

This stone is superbly well made and well worth the cost.