Thread: New Shapton 8K is nice

The Shapton Ceramic Kuromaku #8000 hone is new to me.
After one tune up honing and one shave I am quite pleased.

I may like it for my face more than the finer Shapton Ceramic 12K.

Too early to say more than watch this rock! It has potential.

It is splash and go and the box has air vents so it will dry in the box...
I am now tempted to take a drill and vent my Norton's plastic boxes
if I do not sell my Nortons to make room.

The Shapton 2k, 5k, and 8k Pro have been my main sequence for some time now. The 2k and 5k for a few years and I added the 8k about a year ago. They do the job well.

Cheers, Steve

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

The Shapton Ceramic Kuromaku #8000 hone is new to me.
After one tune up honing and one shave I am quite pleased.

I may like it for my face more than the finer Shapton Ceramic 12K.

Too early to say more than watch this rock! It has potential.

It is splash and go and the box has air vents so it will dry in the box...
I am now tempted to take a drill and vent my Norton's plastic boxes
if I do not sell my Nortons to make room.

Your Norton boxes must be defective. Mine all have vent holes.

Originally Posted by Marshal

Your Norton boxes must be defective. Mine all have vent holes.

I guess I need to look at them again.

Are these Ceramic Kuromaku stones a step up from the Shapton GS stones I currently use ?

They are the same as the Shapton Pro stones for the most part.

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

Steve,

Thanks so much for the breakdown, I currently use a Chosera 1K for bevel set, chipping, correcting geometry issues but if the razor has no issues I usually start on the Shapton 4K HR with a light DN slurry then rinse it off as I go then go to the Shapton 8K HR and this completes my mid work, to me the Shapton HR stones cut very fast and can grind away steel pretty quickly if not careful, after the 8K I use a NN 12 that I got pretty cheap but it's not bad using it before I go to my favorite JNAT finisher with a double tomo finish.

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

I guess I need to look at them again.

I was thinking about it and there's a strong possibility the holes are a recent addition. My Norton stones are only 2 years old, maybe less. Just assuming by your join date your Norton set likely predates mine. Nothing a quarter inch drill bit couldn't resolve though.

Can't really comment on the Kuro 8K, I skipped that and got the 12K. Which I did manage to get a surprisingly smooth and comfortable edge off of. It's just very tricky, and I'm not sure I could replicate those results another time. Good to know that the 8K is easier to coax a comfortable shaving edge from though.

I have a question about these Shaptons. On an eBay site 330mate they advertise/sell Shapton, Naniwa and a range of naturals that don't get good appraisals. My question is identifying the Shapton stones they sell. They are the ones in the plastic boxes, stated as magnesia, and ceramic. For example their 12k is a cream box with the identifying number K0705, cost $60 USD. Is this the Kuromaku spoken of here? The descriptor says they are not the export models. But they offer the full range up to the 30k version. Are these versions genuine, accurate or to be avoided.
I should say I did buy a full set of Naniwa superstones from them a year ago on stands and they were the real deal at top prices.