Thread: I dropped my 'Shapton on tempered glass' stone on my kitchen tiles!

Originally Posted by Bruno

Because if you dropped it, it would shatter as well. Only not into nice and relatively dull tempered pellets, but into wicked sharp nasty pieces of glass.

Another reason they may have chosen tempered is because tempered glass is heat treated and is stronger. The tempered glass will withstand more jolts than annealed glass and thus is better suited for people like us who move them around a lot, setting them down hard and also applying pressure to it even if it's for wood working tools.

When I first started working in the glass industry (many years ago and eventually left it) I got a chance to see just how strong tempered is. I had a door glass from a Chevy (it was sandblasted from a sand storm) and used a center punch in the middle 5x and it never broke. Yet when I took a coat hanger and swatted the edge like I was using a fly swatter it shattered. FYI for all of you, the edge of tempered glass is the weak spot. Now, when I tried the same method on annealed the first pop from the punch busted the glass yet the coat hanger on the edge merely chipped it and started runs.

Given the expense of the Shapton 1k I would have just tossed it and got a new one however, it never hurts to try what you did and this now stands as an example of what could happen. Just be thankful this Shapton you broke wasn't the 30k.

Originally Posted by Logistics

Given the expense of the Shapton 1k I would have just tossed it and got a new one however, it never hurts to try what you did and this now stands as an example of what could happen. Just be thankful this Shapton you broke wasn't the 30k.

I'm very thankful!

Originally Posted by DaveW

Ditto this. I would do this with any glasstone, anyway. Thicker stones are always nicer to use. If you start with a glasstone, gluing it to a piece of quartersawn wood, or another (scuffed) thicker piece of cut glass with epoxy makes it a lot nicer to use.

I would say i have a very broad range of stones now and i prefer my glass stones the most so far. They sit nicely in you hand if you want to have a go at 'traditional' honing and with a holder they sit higher then my standard stones. i generally just use them on a rubber mat.

Each to there own though, we all have our own preferences!

Mine have to do double duty (woodworking and razors, knives too, I guess and anything else that could benefit from a stone), so my opinions are clouded a little bit.

I've not seen the glasstones as anything other than a way to get people to pay full price for 1/3rd of a stone, or actually more than they charge for a pro stone in japan. The exception being maybe the 30k stone, but there are so many ways to get a uniform 1/2 micron cut that don't cost $300.

Far and away, of all of my stones (50?) the shapton pros get used the most, but I would have to guess that the arrangement that brings them into the US makes them out to be something better than they are. E.g., the cream shapton can be gotten in japan for $85. Somehow, here, the equivalent stone is about $140 (??) and a glasstone costs more than a pro stone does.

Shaptons argument that you can't use the whole pro stone is goofery, any user can glue it to glass if they want to do the same thing, or in my case, wood, and use the entire depth of the stone.

I would probably not mind the way the glasstones are presented as much if I only used them for razors, but they are spent too quickly as woodworking stones, especially the coarser stones (1000, and coarser than that are difficult to use because of loading, anyway).

There is a sigma power stone that I am itching to try, but I have to come up with a good reason to spend the money. It is supposedly similar in fineness to a 30k shapton (which I have used a fair bit) for about $135, and with a better all around feel. I'd like to see how it measures up to the 10k chosera, too, which is a very nice woodworking stone, but pricey in any comparison that doesn't involve shapton 30k stones or japanese natural stones.

Apologies for the burst of cynicism, I just have not been that satisfied with the glasstones, especially when it comes to cutting some of the newer tool steels.