Chinese whetstones, the good and the bad 

Thank you for this interesting and honest review! I was always curious about these Taidea / Aliexpress stones and you have shown me what I wanted to know. It also shows you are making these videos out of curiosity and for sharing knowledge and not out of commercial interest. That is a rarity in the RU-vid knife world. You have a new subscriber!

I have tested some chinese stones too and what I sow is that single grits are a little better than combination stones. And also Taidea seems better than generic stones. :)

I have 600, 1000 and 3000 grit Taidea stones which are very soft and muddy but do a decent job on german steel kitchen knives. I also have a brown/white 3000/8000 Bearmoo brand stone from Amazon. This stone seems to be made from flower pot material, doesnt cut very well and the 8000 side leaves a coarser scratch pattern than the 3000 Taidea. It also grows a layer of white whiskers when it dries out which the Taidea stones do not.

I have one word for quality and "cheap" stone: KING Still Japanese but not expensive as Naniwa, etc.

Great review man. Honest and very useful. I had a very different experience with Chinese stones but that's because they are from different brands. MyViT 400/1000 both sides are moderately hard but releases enough slurry to expose new abrasive. 400 grit side cuts very well if you use moderate pressure. 1K side is not silky smooth like a King but relative grit result matches description. It feels like a cheap stone but works fine and has excellent value for money. Brinox 400/1000. 1K side is exactly as you described, very soft and cuts well. 400 grit on the other hand is very hard and suffers from abrasive wearing down. It cuts really slow and feels nothing like a 400. Tried sharpening with more pressure and resurface it using a 120 grit silicon carbide stone but nothing solved the problem. Hate this stone.

If you go on aliexpress Taidea have some "professional" stones that are larger, closer to the standard japanese size. I wonder if their construction is different. They also have glass stones that are supposed to be splash and go or close to it. It's packaged to be Shapton glass clone. Would be interesting to review these slightly upmarket Chinese stones.

Great video mate 👍

Hello. For about 35€ you can get a Norton India combination stone. For the money, i do not believe there is a better deal. Very very hard oil stone at both sides. Can be used with water, as well. I want to ask you a question about the Naniwa pro 3000. How does it compare to your Kramer by Zwilling 3000 after your last video on the Zwilling stones? I will buy a 3k stone, and i am considering the Naniwa pro 3k, Shapton Glass 3k or the Zwilling Glass 3k. People still say that Naniwa pro cracks, is it true for you? Thank you

Ok, the grit of taidea stone isn't the same with the grit of Japanese stones, please could you please tell me the Japanese grits of these taidea grits: 240, 600,1000,2000,5000? I mean, I have all of these grits from taidea, and I really need to know what is my sharpening grits in Japanese scale. Thank you

I bought a Chinese green/white 1000/6000 grit combo stone from Amazon. The binder is very weak and makes the stone wear very quickly. It feels rubbery when honing. The stone will wear down with just my finger nails rubbing on the surface. The 1000 grit side feels more like 600 grits. The 6000 grit side feels like 1000 grits. I tested both grits on a cheap knife and examined the scratch patterns on a 10x loupe. The 6000 side and the 1000 grit side produced equally rough scratch patterns when viewed under the 10x loupe. The stone is a total piece of garbage.

I have cheap chinese stones and they´re just not very good. They´re very soft and the grit is all over the place. Don´t expect a 6000 grit even if it says 6000. It´s not much finer than the 1000 side. For the rough work they still can be used. You can get a sharp knife using such a stone but you can get a sharp knife with almost anything.

Japanese natural stone video please!!!!!! Also would love to see the scratch pattern all the stones leave on a wide bevel. Love your videos.

For curiosity, I bought a lot of Taidea stones lately. Taidea V-San is advertised as high value, but the 3000 stone is as coarse and fragile as a common stone you can buy at a hardware store. The 10000 side is a bit better, but does not leave any meaningful shine on the blade. Taidea 10000 is somewhat better, but I would swear that my Tojiro 4000 leaves better edge than that. Taidea 3 stone combined sharpening stations: I thought that those stones are too fine for what is written on them, but I haven't used them so much yet. Taidea flattening stone: It feels that the thing is just goes apart during flattening... Also, they weren't even that cheap. I have a couple of cheap chinese stones, which are like 2.5 cm wide and 16cm long from 240 to 10000 (8 stones), and I swear they are much, much better quality than the Taidea. From this form factor I also have a 6 stone set, but the 3000 from it looks and feels the same as the 240, but wears as fast as the Taidea, maybe faster :D

These take me back lol

I have the same 3k/8k stone as you, and for me it really feels like 800(or even 600)/2000 comparing to my choseras and my kings

So...yeah...some chinese stones, they're cheap...so yeah!

Those Chinese cheap imitation stones load up quickly and dish very fast. Guys learn your lessons, there's no better stones then the Japanese synthetic or the natural stones!! Bury those Chinese stones and put flowers over them or grind them to dust and use them in your garden. 😆😆😆😆