it doesn't look like you can remove the stones easily, but they should come off somehow. its got a plastic base, and the base is ok for what it is. for normal knife sharpening, the stones are pretty tiny for my tastes, I really like stones that are as big as I can get them. the soft and hard arks I ordered were 10x3x1. I only got the 8x2x1 dans black with the soft ark on the backside as I shouldn't be using that stone very often. I think these will end up in my work truck for touchups once I get done playing with them.