Whetstone grit guide: Choose the right Grit for your kitchen knives

Choosing the right whetstone grit removes guesswork from knife sharpening—you conserve metal, save time, and reach your desired edge finish faster. This guide walks you through grit numbers from coarse repair stones to ultra-fine polishing stones, then matches each grit range to specific sharpening jobs so you know exactly where to start, when to progress, and how to avoid common mistakes that slow down your work or damage your blade.

1. Understanding Whetstone Grit

What Is Whetstone Grit

Whetstone grit refers to the size of abrasive particles bonded into the stone, where a lower grit number corresponds to larger particles and a higher grit number corresponds to smaller particles used in the sharpening process. This relationship determines how quickly the stone removes steel and what kind of scratch pattern it leaves on the blade.

Lower grit stones (coarse) remove metal rapidly because larger particles cut deeper into the steel with each stroke, making them essential for repairing chips, resetting geometry, or thinning thick blade profiles, but they leave visible scratches that must be refined later.

Higher grit stones (fine and ultra-fine) remove metal slowly because smaller particles make shallower cuts, which refines the apex to a sharper, cleaner edge and improves push-cutting through dense ingredients like tomatoes or boneless proteins.

Whetstone Grit Number Ranges

Kitchen sharpening systems group whetstones into four practical categories

• Coarse (150–400)
• Medium (400–1000)
• Fine (1000–3000)
• Ultra-fine (3000–8000+)

But these ranges overlap because manufacturers follow different measurement standards such as JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards), use varying binder hardness, and select different abrasive types like aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, or diamond.

Overlap happens when one brand's 1000-grit stone cuts faster than another's 1000-grit stone. The practical consequence is that grit behaves as a combination of cut speed and scratch pattern, not just a single fixed number, so when you switch stone brands you observe performance rather than relying only on the printed grit, then adjust your progression if the stone cuts slower or leaves coarser scratches than expected.

Coarse stones are the first category used when blade damage requires fast metal removal.

2. Coarse Grit Whetstones

Coarse grit whetstones span approximately 150 to 400 grit—with extremely coarse stones under 150 grit reserved for severe damage—and are necessary (not optional) when you face chips, rolled edges, tip breaks, major dullness in your japanese knives where the blade no longer catches on a fingernail, or geometry corrections such as lowering the bevel angle or removing a thick shoulder behind the edge.

You use coarse stones to:

• Remove chips by grinding past the damaged section until clean steel appears along the entire edge
• Re-establish an apex after a rolled edge has folded the cutting edge to one side
• Thin thick profiles by removing steel behind the primary bevel to reduce wedging during cuts
• Reset geometry on knives that have been sharpened so many times the bevel has climbed too high up the blade

The trade-off with coarse stones is that the same large abrasive particles that remove metal quickly also make it easy to overgrind, so mark your bevel with a permanent marker before you start, check progress every few strokes, and stop immediately once the damage is gone or the target geometry is reached.

Once the edge is re-formed, you move to medium grit to actually sharpen efficiently.

3. Medium Grit Whetstones

Medium grit whetstones span approximately 400 to 1000 grit, with the 800 to 1000 range serving as the most common starting zone for knives that are dull but not damaged because these grits establish a consistent bevel, form a burr predictably along the entire edge length, and remove any coarse scratches left by prior repair work without removing excessive steel.

Medium stones achieve three goals:

• They create the primary bevel geometry that determines cutting angle,
• They thin the apex enough to generate a burr (the thin strip of folded metal that signals you have reached the knife edge).
• They erase the deep scratch pattern from coarse stones to prepare the blade for finer grits.

A weekday chef's knife that struggles to slice tomato skin cleanly but shows no chips or rolls typically starts at 1000 grit, where you sharpen until a burr forms on both sides of the blade, then progress to a finer stone to refine the apex and remove that burr.

4. Fine Grit Whetstones

Fine grit whetstones span approximately 1000 to 3000 grit in practical kitchen use and serve to remove the scratch marks left by medium stones, refine the apex to a thinner and more delicate geometry, reduce burr size so deburring becomes easier, and improve how the blade feels during push cuts and how cleanly food releases from the edge as you slice.

Fine stones introduce what knife sharpeners call edge personality—the balance between bite and smoothness that affects cutting behavior.

• Lower fine stones (1000–2000 grit) leave a slightly toothy edge with micro-serrations that grip ingredient surfaces
• Higher fine stones (2000–3000 grit) produce a smoother apex that excels at clean push cuts through proteins and precision work where you want minimal tearing and clean separation of fibers.

If you want higher polish or extremely clean cuts, ultra-fine is next.

5. Ultra-Fine Grit Whetstones

Ultra-fine grit whetstones span approximately 3000 to 8000+ grit, with mirror stones often starting at 8000 and reaching 12000+, and at these grits the stone's role shifts from sharpening (active apex formation) to finishing—deburring the wire edge, polishing the bevel to reduce friction, and creating a refined scratch pattern that feels glassy smooth during cuts.

Ultra-fine stones change what you optimize: performance improvements become smaller with each grit increase, and aesthetic knife finish (visual polish) becomes more prominent.

Ultra-fine grits are worth using when:

• You sharpen hard steels (60+ HRC) that benefit from refined apex geometry to prevent microchipping
• You perform delicate slicing work such as sashimi, carpaccio, or fine vegetable cuts where tissue damage must stay minimal
• You prefer the feel of extremely clean push cuts where the blade glides through ingredients with almost no resistance
• You want to reduce burr size to near zero, making final deburring faster and more reliable

Now let's map grit choices to specific jobs: repair, normal sharpening, and polishing.

6. Choosing the Right Whetstone Grit

Pick your starting grit based on edge condition (damaged, dull, or maintained), then choose your finish grit based on the cutting behavior you want.

For Repairing Chips / Fixing A Rolled Edge

Start with 120 to 320 grit for severe chips where you see missing sections of the edge, or 220 to 400 grit for moderate chips and rolled edges where the apex has folded but no steel is missing, because these coarse grits remove metal fast enough to grind past damage within a reasonable number of strokes.

Mark your bevel before you start, check progress often by looking for the marker line disappearing evenly, and resist the temptation to keep grinding just because the stone cuts fast.

For Thinning

Thinning is not edge sharpening—it reduces the blade's thickness behind the primary bevel by removing steel from the upper part of the blade face.

Start thinning with 120 to 220 grit stones or coarse diamond plates, then refine through 400 to 1000 grit to remove the deep scratches from initial thinning, and finish at any grit you prefer depending on whether you want a toothy or polished blade face.

For Rough Knife Sharpening

Start with 320 to 600 grit to quickly reset a very dull edge without using the aggressive cutting speed of repair-level coarse stones, because these mid-range grits remove steel fast enough to re-form an apex efficiently but slowly enough that you maintain better control over geometry.

Then move to 800 to 1000 grit to clean up the scratch pattern and fully refine the apex, and finish at 1000 to 3000 grit based on whether you prefer more bite or more polish.

Signs that you are ready to move up include a consistent burr forming from heel to tip, a scratch pattern that looks even under light, and cutting performance that improves noticeably but feels slightly scratchy or rough during slicing.

For Normal Knife Sharpening

Start normal sharpening—the routine maintenance you perform on knives that are dull from regular use but show no structural damage—at 800 to 1000 grit for most kitchen knives because this range forms a burr reliably, refines the apex to functional sharpness, and works efficiently without excessive steel removal.

Finish at 2000 to 6000 grit based on the cutting behavior you want:

• 2000 to 3000 grit produces a refined but still slightly toothy edge
• 4000 to 6000 grit produces a smoother, more polished apex

For Polishing / Finishing

Start polishing work only after you already have a sharp edge. Typical finishing progressions include:

• 3000 grit for practical refinement on a finishing stone that improves cutting feel without excessive time investment.
• 6000 grit for a clean, low-friction finish that suits daily kitchen work on hard steels and precision cuts
• 8000+ grit for high polish and mirror finishes when you want minimal drag and a visually refined bevel

If that sounds like a lot, here is the simplest setup that still works.

Recommendations For Beginners

The best single-stone start is 800 to 1000 grit because this range handles the majority of sharpening tasks, forms a burr predictably, and works on most kitchen knives without requiring advanced technique.

The best two-stone combination for most kitchens is 1000 grit for sharpening and 6000 grit for finishing, which lets you sharpen a dull knife efficiently and then refine the apex to a smooth, clean-cutting edge.

Add a coarse stone (220 to 400 grit) only if you frequently encounter chips or damage, because most routine maintenance never requires coarse work.

Simple starter progressions include:

• Dull but intact edge: 1000 → 6000 (sharpen, then refine)
• Very dull edge: 400 or 600 → 1000 → 3000 or 6000 (reset, sharpen, refine)
• Chipped edge: 220 or 320 → 1000 → 3000 → 6000 (repair, sharpen, refine, finish)

Most knife sets contain a chef's knife, a petty or utility knife, and a bread knife—bread knives with serrated edges are typically not sharpened on whetstones, so your sharpening setup focuses on the two smooth-edged knives, making a 1000/6000 combination practical and cost-effective for the majority of home use.

7. Conclusion

Assess your knife's edge condition first—damaged, dull, or maintained—then choose your starting grit to address that condition (coarse for repair, medium for dull edges, fine for maintained edges), progress through intermediate grits to refine scratches systematically, and pick your finish grit based on whether you want a toothy edge that bites into skins or a polished edge that glides through dense ingredients.

For most home cooks, the practical default is to start around 1000 grit for routine sharpening and finish between 3000 and 6000 grit depending on cutting preference, because this progression handles daily kitchen tasks efficiently without requiring deep technical knowledge or excessive time investment.