Anyone used Shapton Kuromaku stones before?

This Japanese webshop sells them, and I have to say they look appealing. Pretty cheap. But I have never heard of the kuromaku line of Shapton before. I can find plenty about their glass series for instance, but not about this ceramic series.

If these stones are any good I might try some, as I've ordered a couple of Noren from this site and the shipping to the Netherlands was good, quick and cheap, opposed to buying stuff off the bay from the USA.

They are the Japanese market versions of the Shapton Pro stones. Supposedly there are some slight formulation differences in them compared to the US market versions? They should be top quality regardless. I'm sure you'll be able to fine heaps of info on the Shapton Pro line.

I have a couple. Don't notice the difference. I've heard they are more suseptible to weather conditions. They also have a 12k instead of a 15k.

i love the medium grit shapton pros. 1000, 1500 and 2000 are really good.

Shapton Pro are hard stones for tools/razors mainly.

mainaman said:

Shapton Pro are hard stones for tools/razors mainly.

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i love my shapton pro 320 for knives. pretty aggressive, leaves a pretty nice finish for 320, and it doesn't dish easily. the 30k Mike Lee has is pretty rad, too.

I'm pretty happy with a Shapton Pro 2 k. Pretty silky stone. It's one of the softer Shaptons.

I have the #320, #1000 and #5000 Japanese version Black Mark Shaptons and am very happy with them! They are definitely harder stones that are a bit less forgiving of sloppy technique, but they cut fast, are slow to dish, and reward consistent angle holding. On top of that they are "splash and go" which is a major plus in my book. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of experience with other stones, but I've been using the Shaptons for 5+ years now and highly recommend them!

mainaman said:

Shapton Pro are hard stones for tools/razors mainly.

Click to expand...

I have the 320, 1000, and 2000 Pro stones and they work great on my kitchen knives.

Thanks for clearing this up, I didn't know these where the Japanese versions of the pro-stones. The pricetag is pretty good, so I might be ordering a few of these in the new year, after the expensive holidays.

I have been using the 1k an 5k for like forever. These are very good stones, very hard, splash-and-go, fast cutting. The 5k leaves a nice finish. The price is also very tempting...

check out rakuten, there are better prices.

berko said:

check out rakuten, there are better prices.

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Finding that out now, but it seems most of them are only offerend on rakuten.co.jp and not on their global website.