A great medium grit stone is a must in maintaining quality kitchen knives. This medium grit range is perfect for not only re-setting edges before using finer polishing stones, but also for creating practical, long-lasting edges on workhorse blades. If you were to have only one stone for most kitchen knife maintenance, it would be this range. Recommended usage: This is a splash-and-go stone, meaning no soaking prior to usage necessary. It may need a couple of minutes of soaking right out of the box, however. It excels at creating a toothy, yet refined feeling edge for almost all types of steels. This stone feels much more like the Naniwa Professional #400 than the #1000, in a sense that it creates a bit of slurry and great for both edge making and wide bevel work. It also feels a bit finer than other #800 stones and has great feedback. However, we do recommend flattening this stone often for optimum result. We highly recommend this stone to anyone seriously interested in getting a great edge that does not lose its practical aggression quickly. We do not recommend this stone for polishing wide bevels unless you have a lot of patience and experience in doing so. Brand: Naniwa ナニワ研磨工業 Product Type: Whetstone Grit: #800 Grain Scale: Middle