Thread: Glass stones vs Shapton pros?

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.

Anyone have a good lapping protocol for the glass stones? My 500 has been acting very strange and lost a lot of cut post lap. Only lapped at 220. Final refresh with something coarser?

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 will give it a try. It been really inconvenient. I lapped it coarsely to true it and remove swarf and I don't want to say glaze, but the stone went into some very odd halfway state. Odd binder, but maybe to be expected to be able to sell such a thin hone and have it be viable.

My 200 (or 220) is dished and I have left it that way because of this. I only use it when freehanding a new knife or razor, but even then not much any more. These stones excell imo from 2K up.

There is a lot to like with the glass stones. They are hard, don't load with metal the way regular Japanese waterstones do, very generous surface area, small form factor, pretty much splash and go, the lapping issue is just horrible though

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.

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