# Fun and affordable



## Dautterguy (Feb 7, 2008)

When you say "Bay area", which bay are you close to? I am down here in Mississippi,and we have The Gulf Coast,Then NOLA in Lousiana. I am interested in The Stones ,but where did you get them???


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## siavosh (Apr 11, 2013)

@Dautterguy - Sorry for the ambiguity, Bay Area as in San Francisco. I bought mine here, but they do a lot of mail order:

http://www.hidatool.com/woodworking?product_id=1390

They also have a ~1k grit version.

Here's another place:

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/amnast.html


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## djwong (Aug 2, 2009)

I also purchased an 800 grit amakusa from Hida tools a couple of years ago. To be honest, I bought the stone because of the beautiful cloud like pattern on the stone. In performance, it is a very slow working, and very soft stone. It does not work as fast, or stay as flat as my King 800. Nowadays, I rarely use the stone. I have experimented using the stone as a substrate for loose 60 grit silicon carbide powder, in hopes of making an equivalent coarse stone. Results were mixed at best.

If you are using it to sharpen O1 or white steel, it will serve you well, just a little slow. It will leave a lovely cloudy finish, as most japanese natural stones will. If you are using A2 or blue steel, other stones will serve you better.


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## siavosh (Apr 11, 2013)

David, thanks for sharing your experience. I agree it's a pretty slow stone and one of its biggest appeals to me was that it's just a nice looking stone. Good point on its different effects on different steels. I tried it on my stainless steel knife and it didn't do much. I'm looking forward to trying it on my white steel chisel.


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