MASUTA Japanese Natural Sharpening Honing Stone (XXL (H))

I have been sharpening knives for about two years, and my collection of Japanese water stones includes a variety of grits from 220 (Shapton Moss) through 5000 (Suehiro Rika). With one exception, these stones are all manufactured, and I wanted to try a good natural stone. Prices for natural stones vary widely in price, and water stones from Japan are usually very expensive, like more than $200. When I first viewed this offering on Amazon, I thought maybe it was bogus, like some stone from another country being sold as Japanese. Then I found essentially the same stone, at least in appearance and from the same closed quarry, on a reputable Japanese website: Houcho dot com. Their price was comparable, about 12,000 Yen, for a similar size. So I decided to give this Amazon stone a try. I bought the XXL stone with lower hardness than the XXL (H) stone. Note that I am unable to compare the description's hardness (3.5/5 to 4/5), which is called "medium hard", to a corresponding grit or grit range. I chose this stone's hardness because I sharpen knives, not razors, and do not need to get a pure polish on a knife edge. I did want something that would be considered harder (higher grit) than my Rika 5000. This stone seems to fulfill that purpose. The packaging is very nice, with a leather case that holds the stone and a slurry stone (nagura). A purple silicone mat was included, although I found that the mat and stone can slide around if water gets underneath the mat on my Formica counter. The stone has gold characters on one side, but the gold will quickly rub off, so take a picture if you want to preserve the image. My stone did not arrive completely flat, but although some reviewers considered this a defect, I didn't mind, since I always flatten a new stone before first use anyway. I find that manufactured stones often are not totally flat, and some have a top layer that has a coating on it, perhaps a remnant of the manufacturing process. Anyway, my experience is that after any stone is used for a while, it needs lapping (flattening). The stone is very hard, and it removes very, very little metal during use - not surprising to me. It does refine a knife edge beyond what my Rika 5000 gives. I only use this stone for finishing high quality knives, typically Japanese brands like Shun and Mac, although it seems to improve the edge on Wusthof and Henkel German knives, too. I am pleased with my purchase and can recommend this stone at least for knife sharpening. I also notice that Amazon has this same (or similar) stone available in a "B" line, with a lower price for comparable sizes, but the B line apparently has inclusions in it that can cause breakage or chipping. My review is for the more expensive "A" quality stone. Now to digress a bit: I only have one other natural stone, a smaller one that was marketed by Suehiro as a medium grit (approx. 2000 - 3000). This stone is green and although it gives a pretty good edge, it does leave a noticeable scratch pattern. Suehiro's website has a link to these stones, but it takes you to a Japanese Yahoo site that can be difficult to order from, and its price, with shipping and taxes, was just over $80. Suehiro apparently started out with a quarry, and after they began creating their own stones (Cerax, Debano, Rika, and others) they stopped selling natural stones. Maybe the quarry ran out of good material(?). Some time in the recent past, they discovered a small collection of these natural green stones so they sold the set to some Japanese marketer and put the link to Yahoo.jp.

I like this stone. I used it to finish a few straight razors, and have been impressed. Its a hard stone, and can handle Nagura progressions if you have some Naguras lying around. I've got some work left to do on this thing in regards to figuring out how to really get the most out of it, but that's par for the course on any new stone - especially on you're finishing straight razors on. It comes with a pretty decent sized tomo Nagura, which just means it comes with a little stone that is the same type of stone, used for slurry. Its a dense, hard stone, and it was a little out of flat when I got it. I hit it with an Atoma 1200 and some 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and it gave me a nice flat and smooth finish.

I used to sharpen my knife with 1000/6000 grit combination whetstone. It was quiet sharp but I decide to buy this stone to test whether it can get sharpener. The result is amazing. The blade seems to get shinier and sharpener. I can easily make a push-cut on paper which I often feel hard to do which a 6000 grit stone As a beginner in knife sharpening, I am also able to achieve a close to mirror edge with this natural Japanese stone. The thing I don't like about this stone is that It it is not flat, and it took me an hour to flatten it with a Norton flattening stone. There aren't any indicating number or word etching on the stone to confirm that it is a hard version of this stone. So I am not sure that whether my stone is the normal version or the hard version. Overall I am very satisfied with this whetstone.

I have read the reviews on this stone and bought 1. I personally really like this stone. I have a wide variety of stones natural and man-made. I have 17 years of experience sharpening blades and I believe this to be a good buy. Some buyers seem to be upset because they don’t believe it is a true Japanese natural stone. While others seem to have fallen in love with it. For the money it is a good investment because it is a fine grit that is very very dense. which means it will last for years unlike less dense stones that you can clearly see the where after a year. If you’re looking for a natural stone that is certified this isn’t it but it is a good stone nonetheless.

Incredibly fine stone, leaves all my tools razor sharp. I used to stop at 8000 grit and then switched to 12000 grit or better. It's amazing how much better all the tools perform on hardwoods when you take it that extra bit farther.

The stone required some flattening due to slightiy raised front and back regions of the stone. The stone is hard as I hoped it would be and paid for, but required quite alot of effort to level. I did not finish any of my knives on this stone and will evaluate the stone in this regards at a later date. I normally go thru 1000/4000, followed by 8000 waterstones to sharpen my Shun and Sakai knives. The Masuta blue will be the final polishing phase. The Masuta stone appears to more gray in color than the picture even when wet, still a pretty natural stone.

Almost didn’t want to open it, comes so well packaged. One of those things in life that come along so infrequently, when they do it sets you back. As listed, this is for finishing tools, knives, etc. purchased for V-11 blades used on ebony fingerboard. It does leave a mirrored finish. I usually don’t leave feedback, but very impressed with this product in several ways. We tend to throw money at things and think little about it. Obviously there is great pride taken by the suppliers of this product. I can and do appreciate that.

I’m a professional chef with 27 years experience in kitchens worldwide and am now based in Asia. I really wanted this whetstone to be what it claimed to be, especially at this price as natural Japanese whetstones are both expensive and beautiful. Against my better judgment I went ahead and ordered it, giving the benefit of doubt to Nagura Stones. This is my review: The first picture is of the packaging and the knife I used as an experiment, (it’s 260 mm for reference and definitely not one of my best) The second and third picture show you what’s inside. My suspicion was immediately raised on viewing this as the “Japanese “ characters on the box are meaningless to Japanese speakers and I checked with a Chinese friend who also was unable to make sense of them. Inside you get the stone in a leather pouch, a nagura stone and a purple rubbery pad, that’s it. There is no certification of authenticity, no instructions for care, no country of origin. I initially used KUROMAKU Ceramic Whetstones,1000 to get the edge back then moved onto a 5000, before changing to my new “12000” grit “Natural Tsushima”. Firstly the nagura is dreadful, it ended up putting numerous scratches on the stone and didn’t really generate a good slurry so I changed to a diamond flattening stone which did both, flatten it and got a good slurry ( pictures four and five) The edge it eventually gave me was ok as you can six in the sixth picture but not at all satisfactory for a stone costing this much money. So, as an exercise in finding out what this actually is, I dug out a Chinese “Black Slate” natural stone I picked up here in Hong Kong for US$12 and did a comparison. They both look and feel exactly the same ( picture seven and eight) and indeed the slurry was similar as was the polishing on my knife edge. Ie not particularly polished or razor sharp. In the end I went for my bona fide 12000 and finished the job. Picture nine is the dish I used the knife for. In summary I’m calling out Nagura Stones and I reckon this is BS. It’s not Japanese, it’s not 12000 grit and it’s not worth your money. If I hadn’t of used it , I would be returning this straight away but as it is, it will go into the kitchen box for my crew to use as a 5000 grit max. Save your money as I said, it’s as good as the$12 stone from China, only in “fancy” packaging.

He investigado, es una piedra muy buena y dura, que durará años, es especial por es que es para afilar, suelta un lodo qué ayuda mucho a pulir, pero no es auténtica tsushima pero es muy parecida, pero realmente me encantó, solamente si le deben de quitar ese nombre y ponerle réplica.