Thread: What is ecmveryone's preference

Looking for everyone's preference for bevel setting stone. Splashing go or true water stones

Cattleman02...
I just noticed your down the road a piece.
La Junta is not a direction i go to any longer. Hwy 50 is just not on my map these days. But if your ever in the Springs.... Send me a PM.

For your question, for bevel setting man made stones like the Naniwa or others the same type of splash and go it the way to go. You want a solid bevelset. 100 %. No messing around. Its the most important step in honing. Grind the bevel to what it needs to be. Then move on. If you want to go to naturals after that is a personnal choice.

Up to you, but i like to get the job done and as quickly as possible.

You can use naturals for bevel set but it takes more effort or time to learn the stone to get what you want from it. A synthetic will do what it made to do and no tricks to learn. Except learning how to hone.

Naniwa Chosera 1k for me

1K Chosera

I like the full Ark progression which is actually an oilstone however, I use water and Smith's, but that is a lot of work and I would consider that an advanced technique. Jerry is right. A good synthetic is the way to go especially at the beginning when you are learning. Mike thinks I'm nuts for the Ark bevel set but hey...I love to hone so.

600 grit wet/dry sandpaper attached to a piece of glass. It works!

There is setting the bevel, and there is setting the bevel. Or you could say there is setting the bevel, and the is repairing/grinding the razor to the point where you can set the bevel, and setting the bevel.

I rather like the Naniwa Superstone 1k, sometimes following the Naniwa Chosera 1k. Both are outstanding places to start, with a razor in decent shape. Make sure your bevel setter is nice and flat. Don't trust "flattening stones". Put together a reliable means of lapping, using a very flat surface. I have a couple of different setups. First, I have a granite machinist's surface plate, certified to I think .0001" or something like that. Yeah, the nearest ten-thousandth of an inch. Pretty dawgone flat. A sheet of good quality red resin sandpaper carefully glued to the plate, and I have a very flat abrasive surface that never goes out of flat by more than half the thickness of sandpaper, at worst, and the abrasive itself is easily refreshed, and of course the granite cannot wear out because the razor never touches it.

BUT, I don't like stuff stuck on my granite plate. So more often, I use an 18" long, 6" wide, 1" thick plate of acrylic from TAP Plastics. Excellent product, very nicely cut, too. I buy sandpaper in 4" wide rolls online for this application, and stick it to the plate, so I have a very nice surface for lapping any sort of stone. I do not like to over-run ends or edges, when my goal is to end up with the flattest possible stone. Don't let sticker shock scare you away from acrylic. It is nearly indestructible in our normal useage. Lasts basically forever. Your choice of grit ratings, of course, depending on which paper you stick to the plate. I use 3M spray adhesive, only a very very light spritz of it on the paper.

You can also of course cut straight to the chase. When doing serious edge repair, you can instead of using your acrylic and sandpaper setup to flatten a stone to use for fixing a razor's edge, you can use the flattening equipment itself to grind or regrind the bevel. However, rather than the grit you think you need, go the next grit finer, and before you touch razor to sandpaper, hone a cheap SS chef knife on it, to knock down the proud abrasive particles, which gives you a more consistent scratch depth.

But as for stones for edge repair, Suehiro or Shapton Kuromaku are great in the 220 0r 320 grit range, then step up to a Chosera 600 or a Norton 1k, which is actually more like the Chosera 600 in surfacing ability but is a bit longer wearing. Once you gitter done, and you have no sparklies and a good consistent reflection out to the edge, do the true bevel setting operation with a Chosera 1k or better, the Naniwa Superstone 1k which leaves a much nicer bevel surface.

When doing edge repair with coarse abrasives, you do not have to achieve a perfect bevel along 100% of the entire edge length. When it is nearly there, is a good place to jump up a grit. Why? Well, normally, one gets all he can get out of a grit before going finer, but at coarse grits the scratch depth is significant, and no matter where you stop, the next stage STILL has to completely remove all of the coarser scratches. Bevel looks nice and geometrical? Still have 320 grit scratches? You STILL have to go some more, to get down to the bottom of those scratches with your 600! If you had only stopped a little earlier with the coarse stone, you would not be wasting so many extra microns of good razor steel.

Also, remember that when you screw up with coarser stones, you screw up worse than if you screw up with finer stones or film. Just sayin. Make sure you have correct balance in pressure, between edge and spine. They should wear in proportion to one another, so that the bevel angle remains more or less as designed. Many here suggest always taping the spine. I do not. But do be on guard against grinding away at the spine without also removing the same amount of steel from the edge. A slight torque downward, not too much, should do the trick for you.

Also, do first get very very good at refreshing an edge with your finisher, before you try to set a bevel.

Bevel setter

Without a doubt absolutely positively the best bevel setter right now to date is the Naniwa Chosera / Pro 1k

I do 99% of all the razors that come in for Restore and Honing on that..

Yes I have tried just about every 1k and every system you can think of over the last 17 years of honing professionally, if there was a better way I would be using it..

I have zero loyalty to the brand, I use what works best

For Accuracy, Speed, and very Shallow Striations it hasn't been beat YET !!! If it ever is, I will be on it in a heartbeat


Pre- Bevel or edge correction is a whole different topic, but honestly, 99% I can do on just the Chosera 1k I rarely have to get serious hehehe I have Moves like Jagger on the 1k

I just ordered some acrylics from Tap two days ago