Thread: Glass stones vs Shapton pros?

Originally Posted by shooter74743

First, lets put things in perspective, but remember that we are talking about synthetics. A normal whisker, for a razor, is literally the equivalent of cutting a pure copper strand of the same diameter. Now, lets look at the cutting edge of the razor, the finer the edge, the more fragile the edge is & starts chipping away. So in a nutshell, the GS30K will make the edge on most razors just too fine, with just 2-3 light x strokes. Even if you have a hard razor that can handle the edge, the shave from such a razor is what I consider quite "crisp"...almost spooky to shave with. I personally like a semi crisp edge, but that edge is too much for even me and I shave a lot during the week with feather DE blades now days.

I passed my 30K around a bit for others to experiment with and ended up selling it to a machinist up north.

From my experience, talking synthetics only, the G20 is about as fine of a hone as a normal every day quality razor can handle. Natural stones are a whole other ball of wax & IMO should be approached only after you are a seasoned honer.

I substantiated my findings with some of the more experienced honers & their findings were the same, you will find some conversations on the stone if you use the search box at the top right of the home page.

Thank you very much for this info!

I remember seeing one of Nick Shaves' videos where he was with somebody that did a hone on GS Shaptons in the sequence of 1k, 4k, 8k, 16k, and 30k. I'll have to check it out again, but I am certain the guy was honing a stainless razor. Since I have a carbon steel razor, this was especially useful information.

As I said, honing is still a ways off for me as I only have had my razor 4 days now. But even if I was ready to place an order for a set of Shaptons, I saved myself over 350 dollars alone by learning it was best overall for me to skip the 30k.

Originally Posted by jigane

And since so many people have it must be good enough.

Careful, same could be said of HSV-1

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Now that is an interesting observation, and really one worthy of a separate thread.

While I don’t have a Shapton 30K, I have experienced much the same with film and too many laps on a GS20 or high grit nano grit pastes.

Feathers are not for everyone and for some razors high grit stones and paste and too many laps will cause edge failure. Sometimes you can get a handful of great shaves, then they fail.

Really I too think we are talking about the edge of performance of a synthetic hone/paste, add in a vintage razor of unknown history… It would be interesting to see what number of razors that can handle a synthetic of that caliber.

Probably why, old Sheffield’s seem to prefer old Slates so well.

This is why there is nothing that beats a Japanese whetstone in shaving edges- the edge retention and top shave quality are due to the refined edge without deep damaging stria- naturals don't over hone. They heal and they refine well past what any synthetic can do. That's why I was none to impressed with my 20k. which for the record IIRC has smaller particles than the shapton 30k.

Originally Posted by jnats

20k. which for the record IIRC has smaller particles than the shapton 30k.

Correction on this: the gok20k has .5 much like crox, whereas the SG30k has .49 for average particle size

As a follow up I lapped this 500 gs on a marble plate with a fresh sheet of 120 grit sic paper and a lot of water. It is behaving itself again. It's nice to have it back.

Originally Posted by ScottGoodman

Mine did that too, I looked at it under the microscope. I found that the slurry had filled the stone as I was only using a little water. I re-lapped it under constant running water and the problem went away. Rinse it off real good, under the sprayer if you have one.

I like the Shapton Glass, I have the 1000, 4000, 8000, 16000. I like the feel when sharpening on them. The stone maintenance is about as minimal as it gets. As for wearing them out I think if you sharpened knives professionally maybe, but as a hobbyist I won't wear them out. Their lapping plate/stone is really nice too. I will get the 30000 eventually but at $400 I just finished with half micron diamond on a strop which is a similar finish. So to me the flatness and the minimal maintenance and easy of storage are really the selling points.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Was it mentioned that some Shapton Glass exist in two versions, HR and HC? I have the HR 1-16k glass stones (white color), which I love. I also have 4 and 8k in HC (grey color, I believe a 6 exists too). I get a better polish with the 8k HC than I do with the 16k HR....go figure (anyone else have same experience?). You can see and read about the HR (and HC) glass stones at Dictum and Aftramestokyo.

https://www.dictum.com/en/sharpening...rigPageSize=12

SHAPTON Glass Stone High Carbon 8000 grit (HC model)

The grass is greener

The video you are speaking of was the Perfect Edge with Howard.

Originally Posted by MichaelS

Was it mentioned that some Shapton Glass exist in two versions, HR and HC? I have the HR 1-16k glass stones (white color), which I love. I also have 4 and 8k in HC (grey color, I believe a 6 exists too). I get a better polish with the 8k HC than I do with the 16k HR....go figure (anyone else have same experience?). You can see and read about the HR (and HC) glass stones at Dictum and Aftramestokyo.

https://www.dictum.com/en/sharpening...rigPageSize=12

SHAPTON Glass Stone High Carbon 8000 grit (HC model)

The grass is greener

Yes, the HC series polishes much better than the HR series. The 8k HC is about the only 8k that makes a decent shaving edge for me.

Shapton recommends the 8k HC over the 16k HR for razors. I think that I’ve posted that email here somewhere.

Originally Posted by MichaelS

Was it mentioned that some Shapton Glass exist in two versions, HR and HC? I have the HR 1-16k glass stones (white color), which I love. I also have 4 and 8k in HC (grey color, I believe a 6 exists too). I get a better polish with the 8k HC than I do with the 16k HR....go figure (anyone else have same experience?). You can see and read about the HR (and HC) glass stones at Dictum and Aftramestokyo.

https://www.dictum.com/en/sharpening...rigPageSize=12

SHAPTON Glass Stone High Carbon 8000 grit (HC model)

The grass is greener

I have all the Shapton stone’s including the HC . I think the Naniwa snow whiter and gouken fuji are better 8 k stones. I also have the suehiro 20 k which I like more than the Shapton 30 k. I started out with the Naniwa but got tired of the warping issues and seldom use any more.