Quote Originally Posted by riooso View Post
I have the standard Shapton 1K glass not the pro. I am not getting much cutting action for what I would think a 1K should be. I have watched the progress with a 30X loupe and it is very slow.

R
A Shapton Glass Stone and a Shapton Professional are two completely different animals...

The Chosera will work better than the Glass Stone, but at the same time, the Professional will take the Glass Stone outside and teach it a lesson or three.


Here's a suggestion you might try. I've not ever done it with a Glass Stone since I reckon they're a lost cause, but it's a trick that can usually coax increased performance out of any stone. When I bother to give the Glass Stones another going over, I'll give this a try to see what happens myself, I don't expect anything different to what is described below.

Take a diamond plate of any size, a scotchbrite pad, a piece of wet and dry sandpaper, anything that you can scrub the Glass Stone with without leaving anything behind. Not another stone like a nagura please unless you know it's of the same or finer grit than the stone it's being used on.

Scrub the surface of the stone, focusing most of those areas that you don't use when sharpening. Make sure there's at least a film of water on the stone, not standing water. Create a thin slurry on the stone and use that to do the work.

Keep the slurry on the stone, work it around as much as you can and try to maintain consistency by adding only a little water at a time. Water on the blade from a rinse is usually enough to maintain the slurry. If the slurry goes black, good. If the slurry starts to create sticky areas, then work the liquid slurry into those areas to break them up and back off the pressure a little.

You're not aiming for mud like what comes out of a King stone or similar, just an artificially created slurry like watered down milk. It should speed things up without any detrimental side effects and allow you to at least get some use from the Glass Stone, and buying yourself some time to at least try something else (if possible) before you need to replace it.

The abrasive in the Glass Stones is good stuff, the problem is the binder which (I think) holds onto the abrasive for a little longer than what is good for it. Get some of that good abrasive out of the binder and make it do some useful work, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

If no good comes of it, hey, it didn't cost you anything but a little time.

Good luck, and do please let us know how it works out if you try it.

Stu.