locally available 2000 grit sharpening stone

I have been looking all over for a good sharpening stone. A friend (Owyn) offered one of his Naniwa 1000 grit Japanese stone and I grabbed it of course without hesitation. I continue to look for higher grits the like of 8000. I thought that the Naniwa 1000 grit although bought locally is very rare what else can I expect higher grits?
Well today I found two stones with higher than the 1000 grit. Its not Naniwa but I am certain that they were Japanese stones. The first one a class "B" 1200 grit stone ( I was told to purchase the other as it is better, I trust this vendor with his advice ) and the other, a 2000 grit class "A" Japanese stone which I purchased of course. I rushed home and opened my new stone.
First impressions were that the stone is flat without flattening necessary and that the texture is very smooth.


The stone measures 180 mm x 80 mm, just about perfect for honing all the hand plane blade sizes.
I placed it under water for 5 minutes just to soak in and gave my No. 4 blade a light honing. To my surprise, it cuts faster than the Naniwa stone and very clean. I was very pleased with the results just from a few strokes on it. I places the second bevel and just like the primary, it was no hassle with just about six strokes and the bevel is there. a light pass at the strop and in comes the back bevel. I did cut some pine endgrain and forgot to take some pictures of it. So, the next thing was to install the chip breaker and assemble it back. Did some minor tweaking just to center the blade and viola...


This Japanese stone should be available to all filipino handplane enthusiast. It makes sharpening much easier. A similar stone I found was in the knives store and costs Php 3,000.00. This one costs much much less and seems to be the same. Except, the ones in the knives store carries the Japanese signature which mine did not have.
Overall remark:
this stone is a must have for the sharpening buffs.

Leave a comment when you can. I would appreciate this.