Thread: Any difference between Chinese 3k/8k hones?

Originally Posted by Marshal

No difference really. They're all cheap Chinese Junk. Might be good enough to get some sort of edge on the razor, but I haven't seen anyone buy them and use them for any length of time without biting the bullet and upgrading to one of the big four (Norton, Naniwa, Shapton, or King). And once they do, they never look back. My suggestion - skip throwing away $ on hones that will end up on a shelf collecting dust and save for a quality hone.

If you want something cheap to get you through, look into Barber hones and/or the King 1/6.

I don't like the oversimplification that all Chinese manufacturing sucks. It is an helpful rule of thumb, perhaps, but too coarse for my liking.

This pattern you describe, you have seen that consistently? Across brands?

Also, are you telling me that a King 6k will give me a better edge than any Chinese 8k??? Because that'd be very good news for me!

King and the other well-known Japanese brands are companies with reputations. When they say their product has a particular grit rating they mean it and they can quote chapter and verse on the applicable national standards and quality control systems they follow to achieve compliance with them. When the Chinese manufacturers start doing that they will be worth considering. It is probably only a matter of time before this happens; their manufacturing industry is vast and export focused so I'm sure there will eventually be very good hones coming from China.

The real answer is that no one knows the answer here as no one has that hone. It might be OK. It might not be.

Originally Posted by malaverdiere

I don't like the oversimplification that all Chinese manufacturing sucks. It is an helpful rule of thumb, perhaps, but too coarse for my liking.

This pattern you describe, you have seen that consistently? Across brands?

Also, are you telling me that a King 6k will give me a better edge than any Chinese 8k??? Because that'd be very good news for me!

I don't much care for that rule of thumb either, and I love a cheap hone that's also good. Unfortunately, when it comes to synthetics the cheap ones are often not good. I can vouch for Shapton Kuromakus as being good and not too spendy. Same can be said for King hones, though the 8K is a bit spendy and their 10k is hard to find.

China is a big place, and there may be some hone out there that is actually good. However, taidea/weiwei hones specifically have been noted as softer than hones from the big 4, and often perform like a hone 1 to 2K lower than what it's rated.

So in the case of those hones, yes the weiwei 8k is about the same as a King 6K. I have a Chinese natural that is one of my favorite hones, but I can't recommend those as they are hit or miss and you may have to purchase a few to find a good one. By the time you've filed through 3 or 4 Cnats you'd have been money ahead to purchase a Naniwa 12K.

They are inexpensive knife, tool hones. All hones that we use are designed for knives and tools, razor honing is a very small part of the market and we use those that have proven to work well for razors.

There are other factors, than grit size that make a hone suitable for razor honing, one is the binder. This is where inexpensive stone makers skimp.

Those stones have been tried by other on this and other forums for razors without good results. As I recall the stones are very soft and aggressive. Read the reviews on Amazon as well. There are many threads on those stones, as new honers are attracted to them because of price.

Those stones are designed for the throw away knife market. Someone that will sharpen a knife once a year, and anything is an improvement.

For an inexpensive starter set a King, 1k and a 4/8 Norton or 3/8 Naniwa is hard to beat, right around $100.

And No, you will still need at least an 8k, a razor edge does not get really straight until an 8K edge. The straighter the edge the smoother the shave.

The Japanese Industrial Standard for abrasives specifies not only the average size of particles for a specific grit rating, but also the allowable distribution of particle sizes. That is the advantage of the Japanese synthetics.

A Chinese company might make a hone with the same average particle size as a Japanese hone, yet if the distribution of particle sizes is greater than allowed for a Japanese hone, the response of a razor edge to that hone will be different. For a knife edge or woodworking tool edge, the difference might not be significant. With a razor edge, you might notice the difference or you might not, depending on your razor, your honing techniques, and your face.

Few SRP users have significant experience with the inexpensive Chinese synthetics. So many of the comments you get about them will be anecdotal. For those of us who hone our own razors, 3K and 8K synthetics usually are considered to be mid-range hones. There are some people who shave off an 8K hone, but most people want to finish on a finer grit hone, either synthetic or natural. If you get a suitable finishing stone, the type of hone you use for the mid-range grits will be of lesser importance.

Some have commented on the Taidea hone being softer than Japanese hones. While the longevity of a hone is important to those who hone razors every day, for those of us who only hone the razors we use ourselves, nearly any hone will last a lifetime.

If you do decide to pick up the Chinese mid-range hone, I would also suggest getting a Chinese Guangxi 12K natural hone to accompany it. While the C12K is far from the best finishing hone available, it would be an improvement on the 8K synthetic. The C12K is heavy, however, so bringing it back in luggage might be an issue.

You know, now that I think about it a bit more buying a Guangxi hone (C12K/Cnat) might not be a bad idea. Since your friend is actually in-country, he may be able to talk to the dealer and have them select a good rock for finishing a razor. They may know how to differentiate between a fine polishing Guangxi and a mid-grade stone that's better suited to tools and knives.

That depends, where you buy. If it's a simple reseller, they won't be able to help you. Or worse: they will tell anything to sell something. If you buy from a specialised shop for woodworking, they might know. On the other hand, asking the locals in china involves a certain language barrier, english will not help you much outside of the airport.

Originally Posted by gcbryan

The real answer is that no one knows the answer here as no one has that hone. It might be OK. It might not be.

Originally Posted by RayClem

Few SRP users have significant experience with the inexpensive Chinese synthetics. So many of the comments you get about them will be anecdotal. .

You know guys at the top of this page, to the right is a search box

If you type in the single word "Taidea" you get over 4 pages of threads with 100's of responses about these hones over the years


If you expand that search to include other names you will find even more info..

To say that SRP users haven't tried these hones is simply not accurate..

To the OP you might open the Advanced Search Box and really have some fun

Taking in consideration all you guys mentioned, I discussed with my friend and told him that I needed a better quality brand than WeiWei and Taidea. He will resort to everybody's favorite plan B: "asking around" for the best brand/product/seller. Good thing that HE speaks Chinese.

And it is a good thing that he's got a little time before flying!

As for the C12K,(I haven't mentioned it yet. I wonder if it has a name that locals would know - because I don't have a good feeling with "that stone from Guangxi province". I have tried to look it up on TaoBao, and I only got Japanese synthetics at that grit level. There were some natural stones advertised in the 8-10K range, but they don't look like any PHIG picture I saw so far.