Whetstone sharpening for beginners: 400 or 1000 grit?

磨刀石新手入門：該從400目還是1000目開始？

2026.10.096 min readStart here

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People usually start sharpening on a 1000 grit stone. For a beginner, 400 is more forgiving of inconsistent technique: fewer passes mean fewer chances for angle mistakes to build up.

Start with a 400 grit stone if your knife is dull, or 220 if it's chipped. If it only needs a light touch-up, 1000 is probably enough.

A lower grit number means a coarser stone: 220 is coarser than 400, and 1000 is finer. For most cases, 400 is a decent start.

Check Your Edge First

The apex is the very tip of the edge, where the two sides meet.

There are pros and cons to both 400 and 1000, and it really depends on what kind of knife you are sharpening and how its apex looks. To check the apex, hold the knife edge-up under a light and look straight down at it. A sharp apex is too fine to reflect anything; dull, rounded or damaged spots catch the light and show up as thin white lines. As a rough guide:

• Kitchen knife: I would say kitchen knives typically start at 1000.
• Any knife with white lines on the apex: start with 400 instead, even if it's a kitchen knife.
• EDC knife: I think 400 is a good start, unless it only needs a light touch-up (see below).
• Light touch-up: if your apex isn't too dull, meaning you don't see any white lines or chips on it, but the knife can't slice paper cleanly, 1000 is probably enough.

If your knife was chipped, the path is one step longer: 220 until the chip is gone, then 400 until you can hit the three goals below, then 1000.

Why I Recommend Starting at 400

Typically, people start with a 1000 grit stone, because they only need to hone their apex: refine an apex the knife already has.

But a beginner may not yet understand the apex, so they might spend a lot of time on the 1000 and never actually form one.

When you're new to sharpening with stones, your hands haven't built the muscle memory to hold a consistent angle. A 400 grit stone removes steel faster, so you need fewer passes to form the apex. Fewer passes mean fewer chances for your angle mistakes to build up.

In other words, a coarser stone is more forgiving of inconsistent technique, because you can get the job done in fewer strokes.

400 also gives you faster feedback, so it is easier to see how much steel you are sharpening away. A coarse stone also makes it easier to check the condition of your edge and spot damage.

Side note: there is a cost to that speed. Each mistake you do make on a 400 is a bigger one. An angle mistake removes more steel and leaves deeper scratches.

1000 grit is forgiving in a different way. It is more forgiving in terms of mistakes, because a mistake is easier to correct: you're not shaving off that much material.

Still, my advice for a beginner is this: start with 400 unless you want to spend two hours on a 1000 grit stone, struggling to form a satisfactory apex and wondering why you ever bought sharpening stones in the first place.

What Good Looks Like at 400

If you choose to start at 400, your goal at 400 grit should be three things:

• A clean, crisp apex.
• An even, consistent edge line.
• An edge that slices through newspaper after just 3 to 5 light passes per side on a strop, a piece of leather loaded with green polishing compound.

Don't strop more than that. Overstropping is a real problem: it rounds the apex, the very tip you just worked to form at 400.

When you can hit all three consistently, you're ready to move up to 1000 grit.

Which 400 Grit Stone Should You Buy?

I've personally tested five different 400 grit stones on the market. Out of everything I've tried, my recommendation is the Naniwa SS400.

Buying the right one takes a little care, because there is a lot of confusion online about this Naniwa name. When people say "Chosera", they might mean one of several stones: the SS400, the Chocera Pro, or the 剛研 新.

The SS400 is the one in the first photo below: a green stone on a brown stand, with a small dressing stone beside it for cleaning the surface.

Some retailers describe the Chocera Pro 400 as essentially the same stone, only thinner and sold without the stand. I can't confirm that, though. Honestly, I don't know whether the Chocera Pro 400 is the same stone as the SS400.

The 剛研 新 is a different stone, also made by Naniwa. You can see it in its box in the third photo below. I've used both the 剛研 新 and the SS400, and both are easy to find here in Taiwan.

I strongly advise against buying the 剛研 新. It is only slightly cheaper than the SS400, but the difference in performance is significant, so I would rather recommend the SS400.

If you can't get the SS400, I wouldn't overthink it. Most of the other 400s I tested performed similarly enough that nothing particularly stood out.

So you might as well buy an inexpensive GC 400 silicon carbide stone, commonly sold as a carborundum or oil stone. It's cheap, cuts aggressively and gets the job done.

The downside is wear. As you use a stone, its surface wears hollow in the middle, which sharpeners call dishing, and you have to flatten it again. GC needs flattening more often than harder stones. It is often used with oil because it dishes more slowly that way. It works with water too, but with water it releases abrasive faster.

Soft Stones, Hard Stones: A Rule of Thumb

When I call a stone hard or soft, I don't mean how hard the stone is compared with the steel you're sharpening. This is not about a high-hardness steel needing a high-hardness stone. I mean the tactile feel of the stone when you sharpen on it.

The rule of thumb below is for waterstones, the stones made to be used with water. Typically, harder stones dish slower and softer stones dish faster.

Softer stones release abrasive more readily, which exposes fresh cutting particles and helps them cut aggressively. Harder stones may feel slower.

But remember: stone hardness alone doesn't set cutting speed. Abrasive type, particle size and bond structure all matter too.

Whichever stone you buy, always remember to buy a flattening stone as well, so you can bring your stone back to flat when it dishes. The flattening stone I recommend is a diamond plate.

What Comes Next

By higher grits, I mean stones from 2000 to 8000 grit. My advice to beginners is simple: don't start with a 2000 or 3000 grit stone. 400 and 1000 are a good baseline to start.

After that, don't chase higher grit numbers until you can consistently produce a good edge at lower grits. It's not a hard stop, just a suggestion. Higher grit stones should refine an already well-established edge, not compensate for poor apex formation at lower grits.

Ultimately, don't get too caught up chasing the perfect stone.

Learn to form a proper apex at 400 grit first, because forming a proper apex is the absolute baseline. Once you can consistently produce a sharp, even edge, higher grit stones become genuinely useful rather than a workaround for poor technique.