Thread: making up my mind need help

i have been loking at some japanese stones and i got lost in the amount of hones and type . their are natureal then man made then the ceramic .the natureal stones have about 500 diferent names .so my question is which one will be good for a fineshing stone some where around 12,000 grit.any help please?

japan-tool.com

The guy that operates that business is named So Yamashita, he is very pleasant to work with and has many more stones than are listed on his website.

Keep in mind, though, that many of the Japanese stones take a little experience to use correctly and might be unnecessarily frustrating if you don't know what to expect.

The Chinese 12k seems to be give and take, mine works nicely if you start with a slurry, but some others have reported that it is worthless. If you feel like trying it out, it's not very expensive, but it won't do much other than polish an existing edge, so you'll need some kind of 8k-ish stone to precede it.

I have heard great things about the Shapton line of hones and the 16k has many fans around here.

I personally like the Coticule for all around edge refreshing followed by a Thuringian for a slightly finer polish in the 10k-12k range. There is a member here named Kees that has some great vintage Thuringians if you are interested.