Quote Originally Posted by Steve56 View Post
Yes, they're non-US Shapton Pros. Here's a breakdown of the Shapton line:

Shapton Glass HR (white) - designed to cut the Lie-Nielsen stainless A2 plane steel, the softest and fastest and releases fresh sharp grit easily. This is why Glen doesn't recommend them for beginners I believe. Grits are designed to double (or be able to double) in the Glass series for the most part.

Shapton Pro/Kuromaku - the older 'traditional' line, these are harder and slower. Grits are kind of graded 'coarse, medium, fine' and aren't designed to double.

Shapton Glass HC (grey) - the newest series, still incomplete, allegedly more like the Pro but on glass. I did see some microchipping (rare for me) on hard Kikuboshi Swedish steel wirh the 8k HR that I did not see with the 8k Pro but that's the only example so far.

Cheers, Steve
Thanks...
I was looking for the unobtanium hone and stumbled on these.
I was having trouble taming the White shapton Glass hones. Just too darn sharp at 30K
I tried the 12K and it quickly gave me a nice sharp shaver so I was feeling flush and
tried the 8K and was very pleased.

In part there was a discussion where someone had a 4K/8K combo and the 4K half was
about finished. I started thinking about what single grit hone family I would begin to
backfill as each needed replacement and what single grit hone might best be the lone hone
or hone pair that a shaver can live with.

I think the 8K hone is under appreciated no matter the brand. The shave off this one was
better than I expected by a lot.