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A woodworker sells these bits of Welsh slate he processes on Ebay, and estimates they are roughly equivalent to about an 8000 waterstone ( He also has higher grits)
At about a third of the price of a cheap Japanese waterstone 8000 grit.
Could be worth a look, no?
So mine arrived today, and I needed a sharp chisel for a work in progress, so -

New Ashley Iles 1" chisel, worked the back up through the diamond grits 400/1200/8000.
Then went to the Dragon's Tongue, worked up a slurry with the supplied rubbing stone, and started polishing the back.
It's a bit slow, but seems not bad at all, and is certainly a higher grit than my DMT 8000.
And it of course gave a better edge than I got with the DMT 8000, even though it's been quite well used for a few years after breaking it in with a Stainless Steel block.
Have look yourself - what do you think?

I don't need this fine an edge all the time, but it's good to have available when you need it.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I don't have that particular stone but I do have a slate stone that someone gave me a few years ago. As you said, it cuts a bit slower than an 8,000 waterstone. It's not as slow as my Arkansas though. I think you could do a lot worse than Slate for use as polishing media, especially at the price.
This isn't too bad either:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitchen-Master- ... ss+diamond

My first dip into diamond stones. I like it. I like it a lot. Just depends how long it lasts. I've been using it regularly for 3 months and so far it's still cutting well. That and the slate is probably all that is required. Somehow I've ended up with far too many stones.

thanks for the headsup Colin. how hard is it?

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I use a set of 3 of these, admittedly I often stop on the 8000ish one, but I like them.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

Pretty dang hard, and doesn't break down relatively easily like japanese waterstones when making a slurry (although they vary quite a bit)
http://www.infotile.com/pdffile/advicetopic/34201054307.pdf
Have a look at Table 6
Welsh slate is about the hardest slate around.
So, between the hardest marble and quartzite/basalt, (or the lower end of granite)

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.