Suehiro Gokumyo-Ryu #1500 'dual density' stone.

A sharpening stone is usually a result of compromises adding up to the whole, simply because there are limits to what can be accomplished with the present state of the art when it comes to abrasives.

Very few stones manage to do more than one 'thing' very well, purely because focusing on one aspect means compromising another. Make the stone cut quickly, but it'll usually end up soft and 'muddy'. Make the stone strongly resist dishing, and it's cutting speed and ability will be reduced.

Instead of trying to create a compromise, Suehiro have made a single stone with two, distinctly different sides with distinctly different characters but of identical specified grit.

In the case of this #1500 stone, the softer side is based on Suehiro's Gokumyo style stones but with a less dense, more porous make up, making it very fast yet smooth cutting, highly clog resistant but susceptible to very slight dishing and requiring soaking for best performance. Alone, it's an excellent stone.

The hard, Gokumyo style side is smooth cutting, highly dish resistant and whatever inaccuracy caused by the faster cutting side's (slight!) dishing is rapidly corrected.

The end result is a stone that offers the best of both worlds, rapid cutting ability and extreme dish resistance all in the same stone.

And while this might sound clichéd, any other stone really is a compromise...

205 x 73 x 30mm (25mm soft/5mm hard), supplied with a rubber ring non-slip style base and a conditioning stone.

(Includes subsidised shipping.)