Thread: Shapton in Japan?

Are these the same that Lynn sells?..these made me wonder

shapton stone | eBay

wonder in what way. Shapton says their professional stones are slightly different in the US, engineered for the weather (or something like that).

I think the distribution network in the US (I.E, who SRD would have to go to for shaptons) adds some cost to the stones in the US vs. what someone who sells stones in japan would be able to get. That's just the way it is. I don't think shaptons are trumped up to be as ritzy in japan as they are made out to be in the US (my opinion on how they're positioned), so that may also have something to do with the price there, they're "just another stone" among a huge sea of offerings compared to what we have here.

The M5s are not the same as professionals, and not sold much over here.

I have some japanese and some american professionals, and I can't tell any difference - I haven't had any weather-related issues with them (cracking, crazing, etc).

Just looked at the SRD page, and I only see shapton glasstones. Different stones than the pros and definitely different than the M5. Same comments about distribution adding to the price still stands, and I don't know of any advantage of shaptons over superstones on razors (and I have gobs of shaptons now, and had superstones in the past - both for tools).

THe stones at the bottom of the page you linked are the Japanese "pro" stones, called "Ha no Kuromaku." Those are very good prices, considering the crappy exchange rate. The M5 stones are just very thin versions of the Pro stones-the '5' means 5 millimeters...so you get a thin layer of hone on a hard substrate, like the glass stones but a different formulation.

Also, DaveW, shapton stones are apparently the market leaders in Japan. I have never seen anyone "trump them up" as "ritzy" but they are considered a serious professional brand, unlike King, the bargain brand, or Naniwa, which is the red-headed stepchild.

JimR-
Could you please elaborate as to why the naniwas are considered "the red headed stepchild"? (I know the term, I'm just unfamiliar with the naniwa's bad rap!)

Thanks-Gags

Originally Posted by Joegags

JimR-
Could you please elaborate as to why the naniwas are considered "the red headed stepchild"? (I know the term, I'm just unfamiliar with the naniwa's bad rap!)

Thanks-Gags

Why would naniwa have bad rep, many people here have tried them and they perform great. Frankly I got very disappointed with my GSs, I recently found out the glass bases have a bow, both the 1k and the 4k, they were dead flat OOTB.
On another note I grabbed an 8k and 12k Shapton Pro to try, should have them next week and I am putting them on cedar bases to prevent any possible stone distortion.

Originally Posted by Joegags

JimR-
Could you please elaborate as to why the naniwas are considered "the red headed stepchild"? (I know the term, I'm just unfamiliar with the naniwa's bad rap!)

Thanks-Gags

No one seems to use them, and most shops never carry them. I've been to hone/cutlery shops in Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Ehime, Fukuoka and more and the only Naniwa stones they ever have are the coarse "Home stones," the artificial aoto or the #1000 GC stone. I've heard some very high end shops in Tokyo carry the Chosera, but that's about it.

So it's not that the rep is bad, but no matter how hard they try no one seems to want them.

I personally don't think they're bad stones, either.

I've had a set of the shap pros from 1k through 30k and the naniwa supers from 1k through 12k. They are both real good but TBH I liked the naniwa better for the feel and general honing characteristics. Just personal preference and I wouldn't feel bad if all I had was one set or the other.

Originally Posted by JimR

Also, DaveW, shapton stones are apparently the market leaders in Japan. I have never seen anyone "trump them up" as "ritzy" but they are considered a serious professional brand, unlike King, the bargain brand, or Naniwa, which is the red-headed stepchild.

Jim - I figured they probably were, but they are sold at a reasonable price in japan. That's what I was getting at, but I didn't know how else to put it. When they showed up over here, they were marketed as voodoo, and they still charge voodoo price for them.

I hear naniwa's choseras are expensive in japan, and not just here (i.e., the disparity in price doesn't exist like it does in shapton pros here vs. there), but that shaptons are much more reasonable. Is that accurate?

Things change some, I suppose. When the glasstones came out, the price of the pros at places that sell them here went up, and a lot of the pros disappeared. I griped, and a lot of other people did, too, and the pros came back, but they were expensive. Now I see a couple of places that sell the 15k pro for about $115, which I think is a pretty reasonable deal.

Especially considering the price of the glasstones - something that still baffles me.

15mm of abrasive in a pro stone is $115, and 5mm of something very similar on a glasstone is $130. You can buy awfully nice wood for the base for $15 and still have 3 times as much abrasive.

(some of this thickness talk is not so relevant with razors, who is going to wear out a 5 mm stone? But in woodworking, where you might knock a mm or so off in a year of heavy use, all of the sudden you're talking about stones that'll last 15 years vs. 5).

Some of my gripes are also my bias, that some things that are very common in japan are dressed up by sellers over here as being exotic, and marketed with obscure terminology or campy descriptions about how they're made "by hand by a 90 year-old master" when they are clearly machine made and ground. We have not been given the truth, especially about tools, and what is actually well regarded and used in japan (quite often those makers, like ouchi or some other niigata and tokyo makers), don't even have an outlet here. Things that are unknown or poorly regarded in japan are sold right along with the ouchi and other similar stuff in the US as if they are equals, and many are snagged paying a lot of money for the wrong things.

Shapton professionals are, by the way, my favorite synthetics, so I am not downing them in any way when I complain about how some sellers over here have positioned them in price and description at different times.