Chinese Waterstones

O.K., so I'm going down to visit my stepson, and he takes me into the Woodcraft store. Well I couldn't pass up the Chinese polishing waterstones they have. I get home and I'm having a hard time getting a bevel on them with my diamond hone. I mean these stones are hard! I'm wondering about a slurry now. How, on such a hard stone? Also, lapping. Norton flattening stone, or sandpaper/glass? What grit? These are all things I can try, obviously, but I can save time and sweat by asking anyone who's worked on these stones. I also don't want to ruin anything by using something on them I shouldn't. I also figure I can practice (honing) on this stone until Tony gets his German stones in. According to his write up those stones are hard too.

Soak and hone, thats all you have to do. No lapping, no slurry. Nada.

i have one of those chinese 12k's.. i like it, does a fine job and the cost is right. its a very slow cutting stone. so when you use it you need to do more strokes then you think you should.

as for flattening. i orginially flattened mine with sandpaper. it worked fine. rounded the corners a bit also. 800grit

then just the other day i flattened it again using a norton flattening hone and it was very very quick. the norton flattening hone just easts thru the chinese 12k. so be careful with that but it does work fine.

~J

I lapped mine using some 1K grit sandpaper from HA on one of their glass plates. I agree there is no real slurry produced with this stone.

they work the same way as japanese stones, just soak in water, and away you go, they make very little slurry