Naniwa Chosera Pro 800 Whetstone

Naniwa Chosera Pro are Naniwa’s top shelf series loved for their fast consistent finishes. These are excellent for wide and single bevel knives as well as general double bevel sharpening.

Because they are very homogenous and tend to leave slightly shallower scratches than many comparable grit stones they do not remove metal as fast some other stones that leave scattered deeper scratches. For instance when sharpening a dull double bevel stainless knife a Naniwa 800 or 1000 grit will create a new edge slower than a stone with a mixed grit. However the Naniwa stone will be faster and easier to finish out with a finer stone due to its homogenous grit. When sharpening significantly dull knives a medium Naniwa Chosera is not usually the best starting stone, the 400 does much better.

This 800 stone is faster cutting than the shallow scratches would suggest, it is an excellent stone for either maintaining slightly dull knives or for removing the scratches from a coarser stone like the Naniwa 400 stone when a knife needs more thorough edge re-shaping. When working on wide beveled knives this stone provides a surface that is easy to polish.

Naniwa Chosera Pro stones have a high concentration of a very evenly graded grit bonded in a magnesia binder, they are on the boundary between a hard and soft stone leaning on the harder end.

Because magnesia binder can dissolve we recommend a short soak of 15 minutes only. The mud generated during sharpening will add cutting material when sharpening wide surfaces of single bevel knives or thinning wide bevel knives, during sharpening small amounts of water can be added to help adjust the sharpening feel