Gesshin Synthetic Natural Finishing Stone

The Gesshin Synthetic Natural is a resinoid stone.  This stone is a medium hardness, relatively fast cutting stone, and leaves white-ish polished finish with very light and fine, but slightly visible scratches.  Because the stone is on the softer side, we increased the thickness.  It doesn't dish fast by any means, but it does dish faster than some other finishing stones we have (like the Gesshin 6000 Resinoid Stone).  We designed this stone to mimic the edge feel from natural finishing stones (like a takashima awasedo, hideriyama, or oouchi).  While it does an excellent job at this, it does not leave the same kind of aesthetic finish as natural stones, nor does it feel like a natural stone in use.  It has a creamy feel, though it provides very nice tactile feedback.  The stone can achieve some contrast on clad knives, depending on the type of cladding and core steel, but that is not its main strength.  The goal of this stone, which it achieves very well, is to provide an edge that offers a refined cut, but the tactile feedback of something like a 3000 grit stone (though the level of refinement is clearly higher overall in feel and use).  Because of the kind of edge it leaves, it tends to have a bit of impact on edge retention as well.  The stone combines different grits in a specific way to help for edges with different sized microscopic "teeth".  This is the result of quite a bit of testing and development over the course of about 2 years.  This stone easily cleans up scratches from medium grit stones (1k-2k), and some higher girt coarse stones (in the 600-800 grit range depending on the stone).  It can easily be used as a final finishing stone for a variety of applications from meat to veggies to fish.

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 reducing 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.