Gesshin 400S Ceramic Stone

The Gesshin™ 1000 Grit Extra Large Sharpening Stone is a great Nakato (middle stone).  Like this rest of the Gesshin™ stones, I have been testing this one for quite some time now.  This stone is a new addition to our lineup. As a soaking stone, it has great feedback, cuts fast, and works well on a variety of steels. Its a medium hardness stone that can work up mud pretty easily. Being that it is not a super hard stone, it does dish while in use, which is part of the reason we offer this in the extra large size. This extra large size makes it nice for professional kitchens, where many people use the same stone. Likewise, some home cooks and professional sharpeners may prefer the larger working surface area. Stones this size tend to last for a very long time.  This stone should be soaked for about 10 minutes before use.  It can be stored in water with no problems.  If you do leave your stone in water, please change the water regularly.  When drying out this stone or any others, do so out of the sunlight in a well-ventilated area.

The Gesshin™ 1000/6000 combo stone is the best combination stone I've ever used. Combo stones are often known for putting together mediocre quality stones, often in a smaller than normal size. When we decided to make this stone, we took two amazing full-size stones and put them together. The 1000 grit side of this is the same as our Gesshin™ Grit Extra Large Sharpening Stone. It is a great Nakato (middle stone). Like this rest of the Gesshin™ stones, I have been testing this one for quite some time now. This stone is a new addition to our lineup. As a soaking stone, it has great feedback, cuts fast, has great tactile feedback, and works well on a variety of steels. It's a medium hard stone that can work up mud pretty easily. It also happens to be pretty dish resistant. The 6000 grit side is a very fast cutter, muddy, works well on all types of steel, and leaves a very nice finish.

This stone is great for single bevel and double bevel knives alike...from normal sharpening to uraoshi, to koba (microbevels), to hamaguri edges this stone is a great all around stone. If you're looking for a one-stone setup, maybe even something to keep at work, this is your stone.

This stone should be soaked for about 5-10 minutes before use.  It can be used as a splash and go, but it really does much better with a short soak.  It can be stored in water with no problems.  If you do leave your stone in water, please change the water regularly.  When drying out this stone or any others, do so out of the sunlight in a well-ventilated area. Please keep in mind that these stones may vary in color saturation from batch to batch as a function of the manufacturing process.

The Gesshin 1200 is a resinoid based stone with a white alumina oxide abrasive.   This stone is on the soft side, very fast cutting, and leaves a nice even finish. The edge has a good amount of bite for kitchen use, though many people choose to follow up the grit range with something higher grit. This stone works great for single bevel and double bevel knives alike. It cuts very well on all kinds of steel I have tested it on, from white steel to ZDP-189. It works best when you allow the togidoro (mud and swarf from sharpening) to build up a tiny bit. This stone easily cleans up scratches from coarse stones (400-600 grit), and I have even used it directly from a 220 Gesshin stone before with no trouble.

Like all resinoid based stones, this stone needs to be cared for carefully, especially when considering drying.  Resinoid based stones are not very porous, which often causes them to be marketed as splash-and-go.  However, some water does soak in.  My preference is to soak this stone permanently, as soaking helps soften the stone, increases cutting speed, and reduces loading on the stone surface.  If you do soak the stone, or if you think any water has soaked in, and you decided you want to dry the stone out for any reason, you will need to make sure the stone dries as slowly as possible, to help make sure the outer part of the stone does not dry more quickly than the inner part of the stone.  Making sure the stone dries in a cool, well-ventilated, dry area, out of direct sunlight is best.  It also helps to wrap the stone with a damp towel to slow the drying process further.  If unaccounted for, drying too quickly can cause cracks to develop in the stone. If cracks do develop, mounting the stone to a base can help extend the life of your stone.