Review on 🔪 Enhance Your Blades with the Sharp Pebble Premium Sharpening Whetstone by Matt Venable

I've been making knives occasionally for a long time and I'm proud of my cut. I use a 1200 grit diamond on the "sharpener" and a very hard diamond impregnated strip of rawhide that is glued to the wood for the final finish and sharpness. It works great for years and I usually only have to make 5-10 strokes on the rawhide to restore full sharpness. If my method is accurate and simple, why try anything else? Because I wanted to try the 8000 grit water stone and see what it was all about. So I bought this. I took striking sharpness, 17 degrees. small chef's knife and hit 3000 several times with it. It became less sharp, which is understandable. It hardly shaves paper. Under magnification the rim looked pretty good but had a dull texture caused by the suspension. That is clear. I then "polished" it with 8000 grit. At 10x magnification it still looked matte with no "polish" or shine. It was unexpected. Paper shaves moderately well, but not like this. The sharpness does not meet my requirements. Then I touched up the knife with a few strokes of my 15000 grit diamond impregnated rawhide. Yes, this knife came out terribly sharp. My conclusion is that the fine grit waterstone only adds 1 step to my grinding process to only minimally increase the sharpness. I've also come to the conclusion that the 8000 grit is probably less than the 8000 grit. Otherwise the stone and set are really good quality but probably no better than the cheaper ones. I think most people will be happy with it if they use it carefully and patiently. Recommended, with reservations.