Right now I am looking at either of these two stones:
10" DuoSharp® Bench Stone Coarse/Extra-Coarse - W250CXNB - The Consumer Link - 10x4 incher, can be had for about $95 at other places.
8" DuoSharp® Bench Stone Coarse/Extra-Coarse - W8CXNB - The Consumer Link- 8x2.625 incher, probably cheaper elsewhere too
I was looking mostly at the top one because it could easily flatten the whole stone at once, making it guaranteed level easily. However, the 8 incher is cheaper, but because it would be narrower than the synth hones, would this make it difficult to lap?
Also, I was looking at swarf holed ones because my thinking was this will make it easier to lap- what would be "slurry" instead of clogging will go into the holes. Are the holy ones okay or should I go with the continuous surface ones? (all of these are narrower than the 3inch wide Nortons and similar)