Thread: Shapton Glass ‘7’ Stones Now Available

I say we toss the manufacturers specs and just wing it. Grade them " good, fair and indifferent". Lol. Oh and ymmv of course.

Originally Posted by Steve56

So you’re saying that we can’t even assign a grit rating to synthetics? (<- /H)

You can but they are all over the place. There is a 'grit rating' spreadsheet that I've seen on some knife forums that details the differences between all of the 'standards'. Great cross reference. I don't have the link handy or I would post it. My master file resides on my home PC and I'm travelling in Asia right now.

The micron size of the abrasive is the micron size of the abrasive.

Originally Posted by kelbro

You can but they are all over the place.

You mean that you can’t even assign grit sizes to synthetics? (<-/H)

Originally Posted by Steve56

You mean that you can’t even assign grit sizes to synthetics? (<-/H)

It's probably better to let the people that design and manufacture these things to let us know what the micron rating is. I would hate to have to guess.

The other Shapton glass hones have a "grit" rating alongside the microns as stated. From them, I'm thinking that the "7" at 11.5 microns would equate to around 1.2k JIS. More or less what I'm looking for in a hand-held splash-and-go edge starter. No?

For bevel setting I'd stick with the full size glass stones. You'll be grateful for all the length and width you can get, i.e. more material removal per stroke. For the finishing stages the 7 series would seem like a very attractive option.

Agreed. Those large glass stones can move a lot of metal. Not necessary for a finisher/polisher.

Tried the Shapton out this morning.

Honing: Has the same feel on the blade as a 16K Glass stone.

Shaving: Didn't improve on my trans ark edge. I only did 40 normal pressure strokes on an already good edge.

Not disappointed but not super impressed either. Had I spent the full price on a full size stone, it would be going back.

May try it on another razor next week that was finished on my YG Escher to see if it improves that one.

The appeal to me is the size. The 0.44 is a great barber hone for the traveling shave bag.

But I agree, I posted a comparison between a Naniwa 10k (not the 12k) and a Suehiro Gok 20k, and there just wasn’t much difference in the shaving edge - you had to be experienced shaving with a straight razor to feel any difference and it was small.

FYI, Mark had the prices mis-marked, he was mistakenly listing the wholesale prices. They’re considerably higher today, same a Fendrihan and Sharpening Supplies.