This stone is truly flat enough to sharpen anything. Think honing. Work the blade into the stone with 20 or 30 strokes per side at a time. Then alternate with 20 then ten then 4. You and your angle is all there is between success and ok. Takes a bit of practice for the novice. The India stone will sharpen your edge in a stroke or two. But to get a hardened polished edge this stone is the right tool.Though I do not have experience using other brands (because I just bought my first set of stones from Atoma and Shapton) I recommend getting the Shapton brand. They worked great in conjunction with the Atoma diamond plates. My Chisels are deadly sharp now thanks to these stones and my new honing guide.I use this every month to keep my kitchen knives tip top. It's really handy to be able to pull it out and get sharpening right away (no waiting to soak the stone), since often I'm in the middle of preparing food when I decide that a knife needs a touch up.I use the Shapton 2000 grit for picking up the edge of a plane blade or chisel, followed by a few strokes on a 5000 or 8000 grit. It cuts fast and leaves a very clean finish. Great stone.No chips. No cracks. The stone isn't too soft. It cuts well. Takes a great slurry from my 3000 grit synthetic Nagura stone.Great for sharpening my knives. I'd recommend a coarser grit to start and then use this stone as a finish or midway point. This is good for touching up fairly sharp knives.Fantastic stone, I use it between my 1000 and 5000 grit shaptons, and works exactly as expected.This stone is used to polish the 'ride' line of fine shears. It does that real well. It really acts like a much finer grit stone.