still learning

I have used whetstones for decades and, just because of what was available, mostly used single grit stones until dual grit stones started becoming popular. Somewhere along the way, complete, or partially complete, sets became popular and a la carte buying was no longer an issue. Now, you can get everything you need in one set and this checks all of the boxes on my checklist.

These appear to be an Amazon-branded set of a popular and affordable brand of imported water stones. I happen to have one of the other brand and the color, grit, and rate of wear seem close if not identical. The size is 7” x 2 7/16” – bigger than small hardware store oil stones but smaller than the large (and expensive) high-end Japanese water stones. I’m not a pro and I’m sure pros can sharpen large kitchen knives, cleavers and what not on this size stone. I find them fine for my needs: woodcarving tools, plane blades, chisels, small knives etc.

I don’t have any issues with the product, though like almost all Chinese made wetstones you do need to be careful and check the abrasive as it wears down or you might expose some imbedded particular or substance that accidentally made it intro eh stone and is not the same grit. At this price though, it is hard to beat and for a beginner this is how you should start.

Instruction pamphlet. A five-grade lower school student could write better text. It looks like a Chinese copywriter used an inefficient free translation app to write the instructions.