Thread: What are your Suehiro Gokuymo 20K Secrets?

What are your Suehiro Gokuymo 20K Secrets?

I got a Suehiro Gokuymo 20k recently and have been experimenting with it.

Pretty much, it has taken the place of .3um film as a high grit synthetic finisher but, it is a bit more aggressive and too many laps can take you literally, over the edge.

I had been using Glenn’s 3,2,1 formula and have tweeked it a bit more, but I also have been squeeking the best performance from my 8K Norton and 12k Super Stone to get the best pre-finish possible, as so few laps are used at 20K.

My normal progression is a Nubatama 1k, Norton 4/8K, 12K Super Stone then the Gokuymo 20k finisher.

The real key, oddly enough is the 8k. I believe the 8k is where the edge really gets straight.

The 1k gets the bevels flat and meeting, the 4k begins the polish on the bevels, removing the 1k stria. The Nubatama by the way is very aggressive, yet leaves shallow stria on the bevel, (less than a Chosera) that a 4k smoothes quickly.

I spend a little extra time on the 8k to straighten the edge and polish the bevels. This is where the nexus of the Iwasaki jointed edge thread, I posted a couple weeks ago originated. I lightly joint the 8k edge and then, “weight of the blade”, polish the bevels to rebuild a super straight edge. Sometimes I will do this twice if I see microchips. This make the 12k’s job easier, about 10 laps is all it needs on the 12K, usually. If needed, I will very lightly joint the 12k edge and do another 10 laps.

Then I strop on a Polyester, Canvas Sailcloth Chrome Oxide hanging strop, 10-12 laps, to really bring the edge straight and keen, and then about 10 more super lite laps and it is ready for the 20K.

As I said, I started with Glenn’s 6 laps, but lately have been pushing it to find the sweet spot.
The best seems to be, 9 laps, 5 edge forward, 2 trailing and 2 edge forward, then 50 leather.

So all you SG20K guys, ease back the veil and tell us your secrets, for the 20K?

Originally Posted by Euclid440

The 1k gets the bevels flat and meeting, the 4k begins the polish on the bevels, removing the 1k stria. The Nubatama by the way is very aggressive, yet leaves shallow stria on the bevel, (less than a Chosera) that a 4k smoothes quickly.
Sounds good. I like aggressive but I find the Shapton Pro I use also leaves quite deep stria. Do you use the extra hard stone ?

So all you SG20K guys, ease back the veil and tell us your secrets, for the 20K?
I sometimes use it after a slurried Jnat pre-polisher to bring up some sharpness then do a few strokes on my Asagi to finish or just go straight synthetic progression or use it in place of CrO paste, which I use instead of jointing. I'm finding the 20k has quite a few uses.

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I use it water only, making sure it is flat, I do between 10 and 20 old fashioned X strokes. Maybe 30 linen - 30 leather. Works for me. I don't know if any of the progression of 3k-5k-10k-20k removes the previous scratch pattern. Never have checked. If there are no micro chips, and 99% of the time there aren't, I'm only concerned as to how the shave is. So far so good. BTW, if it is a razor that needs a 1k bevel set I do that, otherwise I start with the 3k. I caught that in a Livi video and tried it a few times. It is working well for me.

No secrets. It's my polisher and maybe 20 laps and the razor is returned to shaving protection. I don't let my razors deteriorate very much.

I use the following progression:
1k Chosera
3k SS
5k Shapton Pro
8k Shapton Pro
10k SS
20k Sueahiro - 30 laps

30-50 on strop

I get very consistent results

The Nubatama is the Medium stone, though it is hard, with very little slurry off the 300 diamond plate, but does cut fast.

Yes the 20k is an interesting stone, which is why I am looking at the stria to try to figure out how best to use it.

It does produce some nice edges.

I have another question, how do you guys lap this stone? I have lapped it just with my DMT 325 on the blank side opposite to where GMN-200 is printed. Stone is kind of hard and doesn't produce very much slurry so im left with fine but noticeable swirl marks left by the diamond plate. Does this matter? is there a better way to prepare the surface of this stone? It seems to work very well on my Solingen blades ( Aust, Henckels ) that I have put to it maybe 20 - 30 finishing strokes and nice shave result. I have to say that I dont think my C-135 T.I. faired as well. I used increments of 20 strokes I think I got up to a hundred without seeing noticeable improvement. This was just an initial experiment so I will revisit it multiple times to see if maybe im just crazy. But for whatever reason I got better shaves off the nani 12 on that razor. I inspected it for evidence of wire edges over honing etc. Edge looked ok on visual maybe it likes a softer stone I got some of my best shaves with the T.I. off a B/G Thuri but it was alot of work. I will just have to assume I failed somewhere along the line and redo the experiment at some point. just wondering if any others have similar experiences with some razors on the GMN-200?

I use the following progression:

Chosera 1k
SS 5k
SS 10k

Im a simple man and a simple honer, if I get a good shave from this set up I'll do 10-20 super light laps on the gok 20 and it seems to really bring the edge to another level. I find any more than 20 laps and the edge becomes a little harsh for my sensitive face.

I will say that my kamisoris love the gok 20 too.

Razorfaust

I have a TI c135 and it responds very well with a pasted strop, never took it to the gok 20k. Probably just marketing but TI recommend just diamond pastes too.

I find this to be true also I use the pate de razoir made by them and crox with good results but other stones work well too. Just need to figure out what it likes.