Arashiyama 6000x also sometimes referred to as Takenoko 8000x Water Stone. Splash and go. It's a fast cutting stone that gives good feedback and can be used as your last stone for kitchen knives.
Size 210mm x 72mm x 25mm
Reviews
6 review(s)WRITE A REVIEW (Reviews are subject to approval)
Wonderful finishing stone, but ** don't soak it! **, January 29, 2023
Posted By: Chad S.
I've had this stone for 10 years now, and absolutely love it - it's a wonderful finishing stone, and I highly recommend it. Nice feedback, and I often use this as the final step when I'm not looking to achieve a perfectly stropped mirror edge. I definitely prefer this over my Shapton Pro 5K and 12K stones for most uses.
That said, I was gutted to discover cracks in this stone a week after my last use. The only difference I can think of is that I had allowed the stone to soak about 15 minutes the last time I used it, rather than my usual quick dunk & splash. So, despite the suggestion that this stone may be OK with soaking, I would strongly recommend against it.
Stick with splash & go use, and this stone will serve you very well.
I ordered this stone as an addendum to my Shapton Professional stones. This is a bit softer than the Shaptons and took a bit of time to get used to, however, once my learning curve adjusted, I found great pleasure and excellent results using this stone.
The stone develops a nice slurry, does not load up, and puts a very bright sharp edge on all of the steels in my collection - blue #2, Swedish Misono steel, and also my r2/sg2 knives. I have heard it suggested in the CKTG forums that stainless steel knives should not be sharpened above 3000K, however the edge on all of my r2/sg2 knives is absolutely superb, so perhaps that suggestion does not apply to powdered stainless steels. This is an excellent stone to add to my Shaptons and a joy to use.
This is my personal favorite finishing stone. It cuts fast, has excellent feedback, and leaves a very nice edge that bites well. Being splash and go, it's great for touching up knives between full sharpening sessions without having to wait 30 minutes for a soak.
I think this stone represents one of the best values to be had in the 6k+ finishing stone world. There's a lot of things to like about this stone. It's a relatively hard stone but not hard in the same way as a Shapton Pro. From what I understand this is a splash and go stone(it absorbs some water) but it can be soaked without harming the stone or the performance of the stone. That's a good quality to have compared to some other hard splash and go stones that are not as durable and require more care. It is a joy to sharpen on, good feedback and feel. It is easy to raise a little slurry with a small plate or something to produce a nice slurry if you want to. I get very good edges off of this stone as well, I can't really think of a bad thing to say about it. The 6k Arashiyama is a proven stone, I would easily recommend to anyone in the market for a stone in this range. I think it gets overlooked as new stones come in and out of the market but it shouldn't be forgotten about because it remains a solid contender and is a very nice stone in many ways.