Love the Shapton Kuromaku Stones. The are harder than most and do not create much of a slurry, but keep true longer and sharpen beautifully. Apply very little pressure to the blade being sharpened. Let the stone do its job.

I do recommend to have an assortment of stones with different grits. It will shorten the time required to sharpen the blade and will also provide better finishes. So far I have the 320, 1000, 2000, 5000 and 8000 grit stones.

The stone fits nicely on the outside of the storage box, which doubles as a stone holder while sharpening.

Very pleased with the purchase.

One suggestion to the sellers would be, to provide copy of the instructions in English, not in Japanese. They contain lost of useful information on the use, and maintenance of the stones

I really like this stone for helping to round out the low grit side of my collection. I like the fast cutting action; it raises a burr in no time flat, and the feedback is satisfactory to my relatively inexperienced hands.

My only real complaint is that it wears faster than I'd like. I'd say that's about equal to or just a little bit slower than my King Deluxe 1000. Not a huge deal, but because I use it for both kitchen knives and chisels/plane irons it means that I just have to remove a ton of material relatively speaking after every knife sharpening session to bring it flat so that it's ready for my next plane iron sharpening session.

I have read this to be the "equivalent" of the Shapton Pro series, intended for the Japanese market as opposed to the US Market (which is what the Pro line was developed for); I can neither confirm nor deny that (in fact I hope to one day get the equivalent Pro stone to compare directly). What I can say is that objectively this is a pretty decent stone and despite its shortcomings is great to have in my arsenal.

I sharpen knives as a side job and these Kuromaku stones are my go to for all but the very most expensive or hard to sharpen knives. They're not the best stones you can buy but for the price they're great they'll cut metal almost as well as the best of the best but they just feel sort of rough or unwelcoming to use. Not smooth at all. The stones come with their own case that doubles as a stone holder which is really handy. Stones are splash and go, DO NOT SOAK, and are very hard so they wear slowly but cut fast. I use the 5000 grit as a finishing stone, preceded by the 1000 grit and usually followed by stropping. I'd say, if you regularly sharpen your knives these are a great choice and should last you a lifetime despite being thin but if you only sharpen a few knives once or twice a year they're probably overkill. Get a cheaper combo stone and you'll be fine. These are the Japanese market version of the Shapton Pro line and are supposedly (according to their marketing team) designed with the colder, wetter climate in mind and supposedly will crack in a hot, dry climate but I live in Southern California, where it's pretty hot and dry and I've never had an issue with cracking so, save some money and get the Kuromaku instead of the Shapton Pro branded stones.

Getting rid of nicks goes by quick now, really happy I did this, I look forward to sharpening as it isn't as much of a job anymore. I was coming from a 1k 8k Norton combo stone, which was always good for me but was simply to slow. Simply adding this would have made it a much better procedure, but I picked up a 1k and 5k shapton as well and I think the 5k does as well as the 8k Norton.

If you already have a combo stone and hate sharpening because it is slow going add this and it will speed everything up.

This is my bevel setting stone for my straight razors I prefer it to the 1000(I also own) because Shapton's 1000 is really more like 800 in my and many other's opinion I use the 1000 for my knives. Anyway this does a great job at setting the bevel on my razors and I have less cleanup of marks on my edge because its finer 20 to 30 passes and she's set its a great product from a great company too bad its a shame they don't make these any more I prefer them to the glass version.