arkansas stones are some of the best stones there is everyone goes on about all these other natural stones and how good they are without realising they are the same or very similar charnely forrest stones are exactly the same but you don't hear anyone saying they're crap stones arkansas are slow because they polish instead of abrading the steel and you can sharpen any steel you like with them people who say you cant sharpen stainless or very hard tool steels with them obviously have never used them as they excell at polishing hair splitting edges on extremely hard steel they might be softer than some materials but they will take years of proper use before needing lapping and are known to destroy diamond plates used for lapping i've used nothing but arkansas stones to finish knives for thirty years and use them for my razors to get really fine edges you need to go to the black surgical stone which will put mirror finishes on any steel type your better of buying proper bench stones from someone like halls rather than tri hone set ups but you can get the try hones with soft hard and surgical black which is so called because of it's use to sharpen medical and dental tools you need a little patience but if you progress through the different grades it's faster than just going from a corse stone to surgical black i think they are well worth the time and effort needed and are a lot cheaper than the popular naturals and do just as good if not better if you don't have the time or patience choose something else