Thread: Naniwa Chosera 400 vs Shapton glass 500 for rough work

I am looking for a stone to do my rough work before bevel setting, and I have thought about a 400 Chosera or a 500 Shapton glass. I don't really like the feel of diamond hones, so I need something coarser than my 1k Chosera to do the work.

I need mainly those people who have used both, but everyone is welcome with their opinions who have used one of the two

The most important question would be: Which is the faster stone, and which is better feeling in use?

I am interested in any other constuctive opinions too, but these two questions are the most important to me atm. How much soaking do they need, how fast they dish, etc, these aren't that important, but I welcome any help to choose wich one to buy

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

I own both just because I bought them so I would have the complete sets..

Honestly these are great Knife stones but they just don't have what I want for low end grunt restoration work, that work is done on my well worn DMT 325, that is the "Draft" horse of my honing stable..

The low end stuff I do on razors really consists or Heel recontouring and many types of breadknifing, and both the Shapton and the Naniwa are way to soft for that type of work...

Basically I have them but, I only use them for kitchen knife sharpening when needed..

For actually honing feel they are rather close, the Shapton cuts very fast by releasing a ton of slurry, the Naniwa cuts fast more by the roughness of the grit IMHO

I don't usually like to go under 1k, just because (with the hones I have tried), they tend to get soft. That means they'll dish and release large grits that will scratch the blade. I did like the dark blue Chosera alright, which is the 600, but I never bought one for myself. Instead, I prefer to use a coticule to raise a light slurry on my Chosera 1k. The slurry is part Chosera, part coticule, and all fast.

I should say I have not tried the Chosera 400 (as far as i can remember), and I have definitely not used the Shapton 500. Actually, now that I think of it, I may have only used the Norton 220...

I have the Chosera 400, and I have tried the Glass-stone 500 a couple times.

None of them are what I would prefer on heavier work in that range to be honest.
Glen described them pretty good.

The Shapton Pro 220 is basically the same, plenty hard, but releases too much slurry and is a bit of a mess to work with.
The audio feedback on it is pretty grindy, and for some reason, that is a turn-off for me.
The 320 Pro might be a better choice, but I haven't tried that out yet.

What I tend to use the most for that kind of work is the Suehiro Gokumyo Debado in 400 Grit.
Hard as all that, plenty of cutting power, doesn't dish or make a mess and has great feedback

Originally Posted by jeness

I am looking for a stone to do my rough work before bevel setting

Do you mean for edges or fixing geometry as Glen described ? I used the 500 GS a lot for starting bevels on beat up edges but always looked for something faster so bought the 220 GS. I now prefer the Jp Pro 320 after jointing or wetgrinder work but sometimes a DMT is the best choice.

To be honest I would use them to start the edges on my own razors I started to make from scratch

I have to remove a lot of steel sometimes to look at the bevels, so that I know where I have to grind the steel thinner at the edge. Also, after finish grinding, I have to go from no bevel to a usable bevel which I can take to a 1k stone, and I would like to minimize the time involved.

For grunt work the DMT 325 is hard to beat. I have the Shapton 500 and it's not as aggressive as one would think. With lite pressure it's more like an aggressive 1K and it doesn't dish which is real cool.

I like Sigma Power 400, very fast and works both on knives and razors, the stone is a soaker .

The SP400 and king 300 are probably both good stones, the chosera 400 is fine. They're great for tools, but I wouldn't like to use them on razors. A hard 1000 stone with a slurry can cut awfully fast and for anything faster than that, I'd rather stick down PSA (adhesive) 80 or 220 grit sandpaper to glass, like from a mirka gold roll or something of the sort, or even norton 3x with uniformly applied 3m spray adhesive. fresh good quality sandpaper is super super aggressive, but it will be limited to things that don't cut straight down into it.

The other option, and a very cheap one, is to get a medium india stone and use your diamond hone to slurry it. They have aluminum oxide abrasive in them that's probably in the 350 grit range and while they cut slow once they're worn in, if you abrade the surface, they are very fast, and very very hard.

(the benefit to the medium india stone is that you can often find them nearly unused for about $10 or so. They are underappreciated because of the reputation that oilstones have for being slow, but in the era of diamond hones to scuff their surfaces, that's old news).