Taidea Water Bed Mattress, Stone, T0914w (3000/8000grit)

I am new to freehand sharpening. I've used the stone about 6 times, on the 8000grit side. I don't have experience with other stones of similar grit, but I have experience with a "MasterClass" brand, 400-1000 grit combo whetstone.in comparison, the stone feels a little "soft" to me: it is easy to scrape material off the stone either by knife edge polishing or by leveling with a coarser stone.in comparison the stone feels a little too "porous": When polishing an edge, it is easy for the metal shaved off the knife, to load up the stone.In the end, it gives a razor sharp, beautifully shiny edge that can push-cut paper.It works fantastically well for the price range.

I am going to post the same review for the Taidea 3000/8000 and the 600/2000 as I bought them together and used them at the same time so not sure which of the grid grades made the most difference but I can tell you that my knives are now MUCH sharper than when I bought them.Takes a good while so perhaps reserve 30 minutes and take your time unless you are an expert at this already (it did mine outside on a nice day). The 8000 grid is a bit soft and i made a small nick in it by using a little too much pressure so beware. I seriously can't believe I've wasted so much time, money and effort over the years with different 'sharpeners' when I should have just bought whetstones in the first place.I bought these after buying a new set of Zwilling Henkels kitchen knives and wondering how I was going to keep them sharp. Henkels had a YouTube vid. showing their own seriously over priced stones in use which I thought about buying but glad I went with these instead ( a lot cheaper) and practiced on my old cr@ppy blunt knives first.If I had known how sharp these stones were going to make my old knives, I would not have purchased the new Henkels as I've probably got too many really sharp knives now!It has brought joy back into cooking and even making a salad is fun, just seeing how thin you can cut veg with so little effort. I can now make food look like someone knows what they are doing in the kitchen haha.Just soaked them for a while (i did about 20 minutes) and don't let them get dry. Watch a few different You-Tube demos (there appears to be around 3 different methods, find one you are comfortable with) and even an idiot like me can get cheap knives as sharp as a ninja sword ;-)

I've used a few different sharpening stones over the years of varying grits for hatchets at 200/500 grit and a hunting knife at 1500 which i'd had for years.I recently splurged on a more expensive knife and wanted to keep it tip top, so i went for this 3k/8k grit combo. The 3k side is great for carefully removing the bulk of the steel but the 8k side is where the magic really happens though. I use a sharpening rail (minnowsharp stainless steel) to maintain all the correct angles for the knife i was using.as it gets difficult maintaining the angle freehand. I suggest not using the rail to work the point of the blade as the rail digs into the stone and ruins the flat surface.Using the 3k side to make the single burr knife into a double burr took no time at all and i was very happy with the angle and point of the knife. This took around 10 mins of work with medium pressure (about double the weight of the knife) which the rubber holder had no problems keeping the block in place.Resoaking and flipping the block over getting to work with the 8k side at medium pressure working into light pressure takes roughly the same time, but the mirror edge it produces is spectacular. After i was satisfied i gave it the shave test and it passed with flying colours. This was before i'd even got the strop out.Overall for small and medium sized knifes up to about the size of a kitchen knife this is the best stone you can get.5 star To top this you would have to get to the £200 range Apex edge which i am however eyeing up.

To cover a wide range of applications I bought 600/2000 and 3000/8000 grit and am very pleased with my purchase.Depending on degree of sharpness required, here are my observations and recommendations on use of the stones:The 600/2000 grit is perfect for sharpening utensils and pen-knifes, as well as reshaping the dull or damages edge on carving tools.To produce super sharp edge on wood carving chisels, planes, sushi knifes etc. I use and recommend the 3000/8000 grit stone.We all know that the term “Razor-sharp”, often used in adverts, could be interpreted as anything! But if you need a literally razor-sharp edge (like old fashion barber’s cutthroat) then after sharpening on 8000 stone the edge of the blade has to be honed with very fine grit powder. I think most professionals use chromium oxide on canvas strop and then clean the edge on natural leather, but I got acceptable results with just metal polish on a piece of old jeans.Sharper than barber’s razor? I’m not sure if it is achievable at home. As far as I know the metallurgy, heat-treatment and sharpening process of manufacturing ultra sharp blades, such as Gillette G2 and surgical scalpels, are closely guarded secret!I use my stones under running water. This is a technique I learnt in the material lab at university when we used to grind and polish blocks of alloys for examination under microscope. Water works well, but you can also use honing oil which is recommended by manufacturer for getting the best result.Rapping it all up; using these stones, with a bit of experience and patience, it shouldn’t be difficult to produce perfectly sharp edge on variety of tools and utensils.

The Taidea 3000 grit is decent and does a good finish. If this stone were a bit cheaper and was only a 3000 grit I'd give it a 5 star. However, the 8 grit side really lets it down, it gives less of a mirror polish than what a Naniwa or Shapton 1000 grit would give and far far inferior edge in comparison. Taidea need to sort out the 8 grit side as it's mediocre at best. Disappointing.