Oz, I'm only 200k's north of you, so you can appreciate the conditions. Now for at least 3 years since I went solely with Naniwa superstones as the base of my honing process, ie Chocera 1k, up to the end with the Gok 20. I have always placed my Naniwas in a tub of water for 5 minutes immediately before use. I found it to work for me. I've not had any problems with any Naniwa, just left to dry indoors on the floor. Except the nearly 4 yr old big Naniwa 4k Deluxe Lobster brand. (Not a superstone) which as I said before showed the same crazing that Jimmy had with his chocera. It looked bad dry, but once you dunked it for a couple of minutes it was sweet. In your opinion, is the larger stone (4k at 75 x 25 x 210) more prone to water issues, like Jimmy's large Chocera 5k? Thanks Bob