For modern stainless steels that are difficult to sharpen and where a Japanese water stone can sometimes clog, it is not so easy to find the right stone. We experienced this ourselves. Fortunately, we found the MISSARKA synthetic stone. Like the stone itself, the name – a combination of Mississippi and Arkansas – is an artificial product, drawing on the names of famous natural stones named after their places of origin.

The material removal when sharpening and honing is significantly higher than with the mentioned natural products. On the other hand, the fineness of the finish is noticeably more pronounced than with synthetic stones of similar grit size. The raw materials of these stones – white corundum and pink corundum – are sintered. During sintering, the sharp points of the corundum are rounded, the stone becomes denser, and the finish finer. The corundum is pressed into blocks in a special process without binding agents. Binding agents in fine stones lead to a clogging effect in alloyed steels.

The combination stone shown below has a coarse side – approximately grit 150 – made of silicon carbide, which is processed with binding agents. Binding agents are unproblematic in coarse stones.

Knife maker Kevin Wilkins from Berlin recommends these stones for knife steels such as D2 or ATS-34. Even KIRSCHEN chisels can be sharpened very well on these stones. To be used with water or oil. Note: Once you have decided to use oil, the stone can no longer be used with water!

You can effectively tackle rusty tools with our rust eraser – whether it’s a rusty knife, chisel, saw blade, or steel ruler.

Since sharpening stones need to be regularly trued because only a flat surface enables precise sharpening results, you should also take a look at our sharpening stone truing blocks.