Japanese Water Stones - school me

The point about carbides is made.
When I said Shapton & Chosera were the hardest water stones, I mean feel, of the entire brick. As far as abrasives go, I believe they are all the same. So in fact a softer stone like a Cerax may have an advantage by releasing fresh grit.
I did forget to mention the newer Naniwa Diamond stones, which seek to give the feel of water stones while having the effectiveness of diamond stones. Slower than DMTs and EZE-Lap while being $$$. Good reviews, haven't tried them.

You can reprofile with water stones, but you end up with the issue of carbide tear out. While the carbides are harder than the abrasives in water stones, the stones are harder than the steel holding the carbides. Not a desirable result.

Like some - and quite a few in the Japanese Knife world - I like good feel in my whetstones. Diamonds don't offer that, but I recommend them for sheer effectiveness if you have Elmax, M390, S30VN, etc. This is one of the reasons I have few knives with those steels except S30 & S35VN. I like what my water stones, Belgians, & Arkansas can handle. Or rather those are the stones I prefer and choose versions of knives that fit them.
Of course this means I have a whole pile of stones.
 
The few times I’ve had someone sharpen one or more of my knives with an Edge Pro, Work Sharp or similar types of devices, I’ve been sorely disappointed with the results. I even had one “professional” knife sharpener destroy a knife blade on a rare knife of mine. Luckily, I was able to replace it after a few years of looking. I was at a gun show about 8 months ago and against my better judgement, I paid a fellow a nominal fee to sharpen my ZT 0562 (Elmax) with an Edge Pro. Somehow, he did a piss-poor job, which irritated the heck out of me. I had to completely re-profile the blade edge when I got it home. I guess some people simply do not know how to properly operate these devices.

I prefer to sharpen free-hand, as I’ve always done. With that in mind, I’ve been looking at some of the bench stones GritOmatic has available, particularly the Venev medium (240/400) and the fine (800 OCB/1200 OCB), which are “reasonably” priced. I also like their metallic bonded CBN bench stones, but they are significantly more expensive and most of the grit ranges are currently out of stock.
 
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I purchased a Suehiro Large Stone Holder. I was about to pull the trigger on the Venev 8"x3" 800 (OCB) + 1200 (OCB), but then I realized that this is more of a polishing stone rather than a "sharpening" stone. Does anyone know if the 240+400 stone will be available in OCB any time soon as I'd rather have the OCB version if I'm going to spend over $100.00 on a stone.
 
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