KING 6000 Grit Deluxe Water Stone

Cut speed for a 6k is great it leaves superb levels of sharpness and with it being splash and go it's very easy to use. The stone is hard, as it should be you do not want a soft 6k grit stone BUT this stone has a very velvety soft feel to it when sharpening as all king deluxe stones do. I love king deluxe stones they are some of my very favorite, up there with my kuromakus and choceras/naniwa professionals, suehiro cerax and shapton glass stones I own. I love the feel of the King stones, that have more of a clay like feel to them when sharpening that gives very good tactile and audible feedback making you very aware if you are on or off your edge bevel angle. The cut speed isn't up to the level of your vitrified ceramic alumina stones like the kuromakus or choceras or cerax but it's still a fairly fast cutting stone once you have built up a "mud" during sharpening and it polishes very very well, even the 1200 grit king deluxe starts to leave a nice hazy polish and the 6k will take that to a hazy mirror. I will say that the king 6k won't take you to as bright a mirror as other high quality 6ks and leaves a finish that's more close to a 5k finish, it will leave you with a mirror but it will be a slightly hazy mirror. A few passes on a half micron strop after finishing on the 6k and you will have a nice bright mirror. For the money these stones are pretty much untouchable, they are the quality of Naniwa and Shaptons higher end lines of stones but at basically half the cost. I mean for 100 bucks you can get the king 300, 1200, 6k and have a full set of very high performance stone that will provide you with an excellent sharpening experience and excellent results if you do your job well. Would I trade my vitrified alumina stones like my choceras for my king stones? No I wouldn't as they just aren't as fast cutting when it comes to hard high performance steels, and the soaking stones like the 800 and 1200 of the king line are kinda messy as they will form a "mud" but I also enjoy sharpening with the more clay feeling stones as the velvety feel is just soothing to me but the vitrified stones are still higher performance in pretty much every way but they do cost substantially more so there's that. Overall I've rate the king deluxe stones at a solid 8.5 outta 10 stars and I would rate my shapton glass 9, choseras 9 and my kuromakus 8.7 and my Ceraxs at 8.6 so as you can see the king stones hold their own in performance and when you factor price in to that equation then that changes things and then I would rate the Kings 9.5, Cerax 9.2, kuromakus 9, shapton glass 8.5 and choceras 8 outta ten. You get a lot for your money with king deluxe stones it's just that simple, when price to performance is factored in the king stones own the sharpening game. If all out performance is what you are looking for and price isn't a worry then get the choceras/naniwa professionals, shapton glass or Kuromakus. But if you want a more traditional stone feel and the most performance for your dollars then the king deluxe are the stones to buy. They have a more natural stone feel (not the splash and goes I mean the soaking stones) and build up a nice mud quickly and once the mud is build up they cut pretty quickly and leave a really gorgeous finish. My single most used sharpening stone is my king 800 as it's closer to 1100-1200 in all reality and makes for the perfect touch up stone, soak them for 10 mins and they are ready to go. Now I'm speaking pretty much only on kitchen knives is where I'm using these stones, I don't really use them for pocket knives with tool steels as I use Diamond and cbn stones for them. For my high end custom made kitchen knives in steels like 52100, Aogami Blue, Super blue, Zdp189 and other high performance steels that I have kitchen knives in that's what these stones get used for. Even extremely hard steels like my pieces in zdp189 at 67-68hrc these king stones will cut and do a pretty decent job with but for the super hard steels I'll typically go with the shapton glass or Choceras or resin bonded diamond or cbn but that's not to say the kings won't do they job, they will but will be a little slow going. On steels like aogami blue at 63-64hrc, super blue, vg10, white paper steel, softer German steels like 1.4116, 14c28n, 154cm and other steels that are in the 64 and less hrc and have lower levels of softer carbides the king stones are perfect for those type knives. My knives in Super blue and aogami blue paper steels at 64rc my king stones are the only stones that I touch those knives go just because of how much I love the finish they leave on those two steels. Other steel that really loves the way king stones cut it is Vg1 and VG10 and super gold those steels really respond extremely well to how the king stones cut and finish them. well done knives in D2 and cpm D2 also really love king stones as does 154cm and cpm154. If you have any knives in super blue or aogami blue paper steel trust me and get you a 300, 1200, 6k set of king deluxe and you will absolutely love those steels on those stones the edge quality on those steels is second to none with how the king stones cut and release abrasive it's just a match made in sharpening heaven with king deluxe. If you are only gonna get one king stone get the 800, it's the best one and done type stone. It's really more like an 1100 grit stone but actually cuts pretty quickly and is capable of leave edge quality that will whittle hair. Ideally you buy 3 and have a full progression from 300 to 6k with 3 stones and about 100 dollars and your set up very well with your sharpening needs. I've said it many times and I'll say it again for the performance they offer at the price they run nothing else can touch them and certain steels respond better to king stones than they do any other abrasive and I listed those steels for you. Now where you wont want to use king stones, for any steels that have harder carbides to increase wear resistance. Steels with chromium carbides like D2 and zdp189 they are ok with these stones but even your more lower alloy level powder steels like s30v just have to much wear resistance for these stones and while it will cut the steel it won't cut the harder carbides and that presents its own set of problems not to mention it will be very slow going to even cut those steels and you will spend a lot of time on the stone to not get very far. Steels above 64hrc are where I say the king stones stop cutting efficiently and any steels with Vanadium or tungsten carbide are just to wear resistant for those stones and how they cut and even the faster cutting vitrified alumina stones like the kuromakus or glass stones are no good on those steels neither just because the alumina abrasive isn't hard enough to cut the super hard carbides, it will cut the steel matrix but not the carbides and that leaves you with an edge that will have carbide tear out and micro chipping as a result so with those steels you need to go to a harder abrasive be it diamond or cbn or possibly Sic depending on if it's a lower % of hard carbides or now but no alumina. For most kitchen knives that people own the king stones will be a perfect setup for them and if you are someone that's really in to super steels than you already know that alumina stones aren't what you need. About the limit these stones will handle in carbide volume and wear resistance would be s35vn levels of wear resistaance. I sharpen s35vn and magnacut all the time on my king stones and it does a great Job BUT that is pretty much the limit of wear resistance, I've tried s90v at 63hrc on the kings just to see if it could do it and it's pretty much a no go and just glazing over the stone because the stone cant cut it. Now it will cut D2/CPMD2 very nicely and leaves a great edge and also does very good with CPM 3v at 62hrc. So just make sure you are working with steels that alumina is hard enough to cut and you will be good, steel hardness up to about 64 is where you will want to limit it, even tho it will cut harder steels up to about 67 you won't want to go that high in hardness as it will be VERY SLOW GOING, 64 and less it cuts efficiently so long as the carbide levels aren't to high and it's only chromium carbides and nothing harder. I hear people complaining about king stones from time to time and I ask them well what are you sharpening... And they say of my Pm2 in maxamet or a kitchen knife in S125v at 68hrc or something like that... I'm like well yeah what do you expect, that's a 68hrc steel that's slap full of ultra hard tungsten carbide and alumina isn't hard enough to cut steel that hard and definitely can't cut the carbides so what did you expect? There's a reason people say with steels like that you will only use Cbn or diamond abrasives on... I mean maxamet is only hard enough to cut glass and has an insane amount of hard carbides to massively increase wear resistance.... So long as the steel and the abrasive needs are within what the king stones have (alumina) then you will love these stones and find them a pleasure to sharpen on.

I've been using King waterstones for a very long time. This is is a finishing stone. If you know how to sharpen your chisels and plane blades with waterstones, you'll get a perfectly sharp tool with a mirror finish on the edge bevel very quickly. One improvement they've made is that this stone is now mounted on a plastic base rather than the wood base they used for a long time. Being a waterstone,. the wood base got to looking ratty after a while. If you're new to waterstones, make sure you know how to use them. You will need a coarser stone as well to flatten the back (you only have to do this once, on a new chisel), take care of seriously messed up cutting edges, and to form the final bevel, which is the one that does the cutting. A bench grinder is also nice to have so you can put a "hollow grind" on your edge tools, which will hugely reduce the time you spend sharpening. A slow speed grinder, preferably with a wet wheel is nice but you can use a regular bench grinder. Just be sure to NOT overheat the chisel! Take you time and cool the edge in water evert few seconds. If you overheat your edges on the grinder, the steel loses its hardness and won't stay sharp very long.

I am a sushi chef and I sharpen my knives on regular basis. 1000 grit stone that I have has been doing the job quite nicely for years. Only problem is that over time my knives will be sharp enough to do the job but started to lose the shine they once had. This stone will put a mirror-like polish on your blade and that extra fine honing that we all can appreciate. The size and price of this stone is just about right. It's not a big stone by any means but I'm sure it will last me a few years since I'll only be using it for final polishing. Only problem I have with this stone is that they printed their King logo and "made in Japan" right on the polishing surface. They definitely interfere with doing the job. After few uses I can see that they will wear out soon but I still think that it wasn't appropriate for them to put the logos right on top surface. My other stone had small ones on the side of the stone and that was no problem at all

I am a woodworker and enjoy purchases such as this sharpening stone. I have lots of chisels, handplane blades, knives, etc., that must be kept sharp to be effective. I have used this name brand before and am pleased with the results. I received this stone quickly and at a very good price. Thoroughly pleased!!

Excellent product, making kitchen knives into weapons of mass food destruction

Vueno

Im unsure if I got a bad stone, but this didn't perform like a 6000 grit stone. I used a machinist block to flatten the surface, and exposed a large internal crack. Not a huge deal, but the crack got worse and worse The farther I went down. It was almost like an internal defect of the stone (which happens), but that alone was a deal breaker. That said, I was still willing to use this for chisel sharpening, as I dont need the whole stone for that. The performance of this stone was laughable. Getting a slurry was difficult, and it was almost like it had deposits of other minerals or something embedded in the stone, leaving awful scratches and streaks in the metal. Returned for full refund, and purchased a different king 6000 grit stone which performs far superior to this one.

An affordable splash-and-go stone with excellent performance. Excellent tactile feedback to let me know when I'm hitting the apex. For kitchen knives, it can be used as the final progression, to be followed by stropping with white rouge to produce a very sharp edge.