Naniwa 16K anyone?

I'm in love with the Naniwa hones. If I had found these a couple of years ago (or listened to some of the wise men here) I would have saved a bunch o' dough.

The 12K gives an excellent finish, but I can just improve it with a trip to one of my naturals (don't use pastes).

I know I'm dreaming here, but is there any reason you might be aware of (technologically, economically) why the good folks at Naniwa could not produce a 16K (or finer)stone?

Is there some way the leaders in this community might contact them and request such a beast be developed?

If they made it to the same standards of all their current production, would you purchase one?

Perhaps not to your point, but I go from my Naniwa 12K to my Shapton 16K with good results.

The only man made stones I know of that goes this high in grit are the Shapton mentioned in the previous post, and the Suehiro Gokumyo.
I haven't got any Shaptons, but I do have a Gokumyo.
They come in both 15K and 20K. I have the 20K.
It is a very good stone, but you would be surprised at how little difference there is in the end result coming off of the 12K Naniwa.
The 20K stone does provide a fine finish on the edge, but the number is a bit misleading. It isn't double the comfort and double the refinement of the edge, although the numbers in grit would indicate so.
If a man-made stone is desired as a finisher, that would be my recommendation.
The Shaptons does go all the way to 30K by the way, but I was not overly impressed with the edge off of that.
A bit too harsh for my taste. The Suehiro provided a smoother edge.

At these high grit ranges, 12.000 or 16.000 doesn´t really make a difference.
And I can not point out often enough, that Shaptons 16.000 is rated with a different grit rating system than Naniwas 12.000.
Shapton uses Mesh, Naniwa JIS. So these numbers do not (actually) compare.

If estimations are correct the Shapton 16.000 Mesh, with 0.94µm lingers around 13-14.000 JIS, even closer to the Naniwa 12k.
Direct comparson between both stones (respectively the edges they produce) would hardly show differences
and if they did there is a good chance the difference does not come from different grit sizes but from different performances of the stones.
Even if Naniwa made a JIS 16.000 that wouldn´t say it performs exactly like the Shapton 16.000.

Anything above 8 to 10.000 JIS is post-finishing. That makes such high grit stones increasingly unnecessary and harder to use (ie. notice a difference, b/c your technique is perfect).
So with the 12k naniwa already has a post-finishing stone. Shapton decided to make a very exclusive stone that even surpasses post-finishing.
Here, luxury begins. You can see it at the price tag.
Shapton probably doesn´t sell an awfull lot of these and doesn´t make a lot of money with it.
Probably that´s why Naniwa doesn´t produce one of these.

Just for the record, I own and love the Shapton GS system including the 30k *smitten*

I would definitely entertain a 16K Naniwa as I have both the Naniwa and Shapton GS systems. Only downfall would be that the 12-16K jump isn't much at all. As mentioned above, I don't think there is much difference from the Naniwa 12K and Shapton 16K in regards to "grit", but hey do feel a bit different edgewise and hone-wise. If Naniwa was to entertain a more fine grit stone I would hope it would be nearer to the 20K range. Again, this is only a opinion and Lord knows there are a few opinions around here. So to be specific, yes, I would purchase one.

From a practical standpoint, when I have compared the results off the Naniwa Super 12K and the Shapton Glass 16K, they usually are very similar.

Have fun,

Lynn