Chosera 800 or Debado MD-100?

[jedy617]

I actually enjoy sharpening ZDP more than SG2 haha. But for both I prefer diamond. SG2 is my limit for what I will do on non diamond stones

 

[Masamoto Kaos]

Thank you everyone for sharing your feedbacks with me. I just placed an order for Arata 800 and 3000. I’ll get a coarse stone if I get a flat grind but for the knives that I own now, 800 and 3000 would be plenty.

 

[Bear]

That’s new, I thought 3000 was the king of the Chosera line. How come do you stop at 1000. Is 3000 that slow?

For me the 1000 is perfect for the kitchen, just the right amount of bite, 3000 for me is too refined.

 

[Benuser]

For me the 1000 is perfect for the kitchen, just the right amount of bite, 3000 for me is too refined.

Especially with little abrasion resistant and finely grained carbons, I want to maintain them with a high grit, so both sparing material and upkeeping performance. For touching-up I use Belgian Blue, a Junpaku 8k or a Shapton Pro 12k.

 

[Jovidah]

Interesting article, I should have been a bit more clear, I think if an alox stone is generally seen as a good sharpening stone, it should do just fine for those two steels. For example, most people love the chosera (I definitely do) but agree that super stones suck for actual sharpening, they are just good polishers. Good thing the only truly bad stones in that test was the superstone and king deluxe which I think most people aren't big fans of. Also this was a test of metal removal at 1k, I would be much more interested at a lower grit which is where I would be starting with something like 3v anyway

Also not all of those are alox based, the king neo I know is silicon carbide, and I think some others might be as well

There's like 4 or 5 seperate posts devoted to the testing that show more results. You'll have to go back and forth throughout the blog though to find them.
It's a bit dated at this point and doesn't cover all the stones currently sold on the market, but I think he did a fairly good job at doing exhaustive and fair testing.
Really wished we could see more indepth testing like that which actually does a proper comparison of stones. Most people here favor brand X just because it's what they're used to, and even people who used multiple brands never made an exhaustive study of it.

If there's one problematic thing about the test it's that standardizing at 1k doesn't necessarily work when manufacturers happily go way off spec, with Naniwa being significantly finer than JIS standard and Shapton being significantly coarser.

 

[Jovidah]

Don’t know how credible the article that @Jovidah has shared is but it’s not really in favour of SG or SP when it goes to hard steels.

You'll probably want to go through the blog to find all the test posts to get the full picture. But FWIW the guy actually knew what he was talking about, and at the time he was a retailer selling both Japanese tools and all the sharpening stones tested.

 

[labor of love]

Any user experiences with the Debado MD 100 at all? I get the favoritism for chosera/naniwa pro because they’re tried and true but I was hoping to hear more about this stone.

 

[Masamoto Kaos]

Any user experiences with the Debado MD 100 at all? I get the favoritism for chosera/naniwa pro because they’re tried and true but I was hoping to hear more about this stone.

Me too but I just heard good stuff about Chosera so decided not to risk it and placed an order for Arata 800 and 3000.

 

[Masamoto Kaos]

By the way guys, Arata is the slimmer version of Chosera, right?

 

[SwampDonkey]

By the way guys, Arata is the slimmer version of Chosera, right?

Seems so. I haven't done any serious thinning with it, mind you, but my Chosera 800 has no trouble raising burrs on SG2 in a short time. The 800 to 3k edge is exactly what I like for that steel.

 

[Chasingsharpness]

I've used both Naniwa chosera 800 and Suehiro MD100 a fair bit.

The major difference between the two is the surface size. The MD100 is longer and wider (225x90mm versus 210x70mm for the Naniwa). That extra 15mm length and 20mm width might not seem like much but it's very noticeable, particularly with larger blades.

Other than that they are both excellent medium grit sharpening stones. Both offer excellent tactile feel and feedback, and pleasant acoustic response. Both splash and go. Naniwa supposedly requires a bit more care with drying but I haven't had any issues. Naniwa 800 does not load at all. Suehiro loads slightly but not a major issue. Both cut at a similar speed and leave a similar finish.

I kept going back and forth myself. They are both excellent and you can't really go wrong with either.