Dan's Whetstone Sharpening Stone - 8" Translucent Arkansas Stone

Great piece of Arkansas Stone.

No doubt, this stone gets my knives to razor sharpness. On pocket knives like a swiss army where the edge begins close to the handle and there is a lot of width to the handle, the wood box gets in the way. You just have to take the stone out of the box and hold it.

This stone works great on all my knives and I am very happy with the sharpening results using this stone! It creates a beautiful polished edge on all my knives that has hair jumping off my arm when tested for sharpness. As for being a second, I can't see any reason why the one I received is considered a second. If you need a great stone that will finish your blade edge to perfection, this is the one.

Extremely fine - using it to sharpen our ceramic knives.

I purchased a 6x2x0.5" translucent stone (factory 2nd) online and lucked out. One side had a tiny chip on the edge that lapped out and a tiny pore that doesn't affect honing. Other side has a large crack that seems stable but I just don't hone on that side. Truly translucent white/light gray it has some purplish spots of color and is a beautiful stone. Very Very fine grit - feels like glass. This is a polishing stone for already keen edges and I feel like I need an intermediate grit level between the hard ark and this, it's that fine. I give 5 stars to this particular stone. I went to my local STP and looked at an 8x2x0.5" translucent they had there (2nd as well) . It was somewhat finer than a hard but not truly translucent and noticeably coarser than the aforementioned stone. Both surfaces were littered with deep pores from pinhead to a full 1mm in diameter most of which were quite deep and I don't think would lap out. I give that particular stone 0 stars. Thus a middle of the road 3 of 5 stars... My advice - it's worth the risk to spend the minimal $$ on the 5 or 6" translucents but I wouldn't gamble more than that. BTW, the hard ark puts on a really fine polished edge and is all you likely need for 99% of knifework (my soft is nearly as keen but a good bit faster)...