New on sharpening need some advices in how spend my money now.

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Cesar

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Hello guys.
Im new to the japanese knives world, just request help to buy mi first japanese knife ( a gyuto) on blade forums. So far i have sharpend just cheap knives on a decent stone 360/1000 grind (never use the 360 so far) a few times just to "taste the feel" on that kind of shrpening, now i plan to began a more serius learning with mi new knife and some more material i want to buy and i request your help if possible to lead me in what i need to choose for this first steps.

Im planing to buy rigth whit the knife a flatening stone, a 5000 or 1000 grain stone of good quality and a leather strop, alltough i read this one is no necesary and can be replaced for more cheap metods.

Im looking to star a good quality ( but no a pro) sharpening equipment, so any advice you guys can say to me is wellcome. The naniwa brand seems the one to go for me at the moment but im open to all the help you can give to me.

My actual stone is wmf brand. Im not sure what to do, keep this one and go for the 5000 or descart this one and go for nice 1000 to start. ( cant afford 2 stones now, will buy the other as soon as i can).

Also, what flatering stone you recomend to start?. Can i avoid the strop for now and use a newspaper?, really?

Any cheap stone holder you recomend? Think is a must or can i let it for more forward?

Thx in advance for the help in this questions, if you have recomendations for me they are more than wellcome.

If dont understand something cause you think im posting in a diferent language than english dont doubt to ask xDDD.
 
As someone who owns the Naniwa pro 5000 I'd tell you to look further. The other stones in the line are nice (although pricey), but the 5000 is not. I far prefer my Arashiyama 6000, even though it can be found much cheaper (even in Europe).
When it comes to flattening stones... I'd also advice you to skip all the cheaper crappy sharpening stones and go straight for a diamond stone like the Atoma 140. It's what you'll eventually do anyway, because the cheaper sharpening stones eventually clog up, or dish themselves, and are generally an unsatisfying pain in the ass.

Not a whole lot of experience with stone holders here; I basically use the cheapest I could find and it works.
 
Thx for the answer.

Wow, that atoma 140 is half the price i have checked in another diamond stones, seems we have a winner here, thx a lot.

So you recomend me to keep the 1k grain and got for the Arashiyama next?

Checking the Arashiyama i see a 7 pieces Arshiyama set whit:
Arashiyama 1K Stone
Arashiyama 6K Stone
CKTG 140 Grit Diamond Plate for flattening stones
Blue Angle Guides
Rock Hard Felt Deburring Block
20x Magnifying Jewelers Loupe
Blue Spring Loaded Stone Holder

Do u think it can be worthwhile? flat + stone are around 140$ and this set looks nice, dunno if that Ctk flat stone can be as good as the Atoma, but seems like a nice offer for 195 $
 
I have no experience with the Arashiyama 1k stone, the CKTG diamond plate or all the other toys in that set, so I can't really judge their quality tho.
Do keep in mind though that they're a US seller... Since you're in Spain that means it's very likely you'd have to pay customs / import tax on whatever you're ordering from them when it enters the country.

But yeah you can find some decent deals on the Atoma if you shop around (for example metalmaster also sells it pretty cheap, if you're willing to wait...although it involves the same customs lottery).

I'm also unsure about your 1k; never heard of it so I have no idea about the quality. What's the actual size on the sharpening stone? If it's one of those small ones (for example 18x5 cm), an upgrade might still be helpful regardless of stone quality simply because larger stones (21x7 cm) are a lot nicer to work on.

It also helps if you have at least some idea of what you want in a stone. Most importantly, do you desire a splash & go stone or not? How often will you use it, and do you have the option of permasoaking stones?
It's also helpful if you can define some kind of budget.
 
ways to buy stones vary:

some say go for finishing stone if you have a new,
properly set up knives (as you just will need to touch up for a while)

some say go for mid-grit 1k stone
so as you may learn the most from working only 1 stone for a while

some say go for a 2k stone to learn on
since it splits the difference between options 1-2
(fast enough to learn, slow enough to use on new knife).

All of these are strategies that have tradeoffs. touchups are a good idea, but presume you can use the stone correctly. finishing stone is sometimes too slow to give feedback and beinners are not steady enough to use a slow stone. true 1k stone will take down more metal and this is sort of a waste to use on a new knive to learn, as the knife doesn't really need this kind of sharpeneing for a while. so while the 1k is faster and gives more visible feedback, it may be a bit overkill for touch ups. The 2k sort of splits the difference and is a good stone for touch ups -- fast enough but not over-agressive removal. the main downside is that you typically don't need a dedicated touch-up stone (unless for work), so this is arguably an extra stone (over the long run).

Most people can get by with a faster, cheaper two-stone sequence form 1k to 4-6k.

This brings us to option 4, which is to buy good 1k and 4-6k finishing stones upfront if you have enough money.

So there you have four options on how to spend your money. :)

I would say that $200 is a lot of money for two stones,
enough to buy the best there are.

good luck !
 
swarth said:
JKI 400
JKI 2000
JKI 6000
JKI diamond plate
Click to expand...

Unattractive for the same reason; shipping and customs. Just out of curiosity I ran the numbers... The whole set would sell for 265 USD. Add 68 USD for shipping. After customs had their way with it you end up paying just over €350 euros; roughly 435 USD. No matter how good the stones are that's a pretty steep price...
I still vote Jon opens a European satellite shop so he can sell stuff to us without the prohibitive shipping/customs issue.
 
I agree with the ordering from Europe rather than the US or elsewhere as I have lived in Spain (Alicante) and I can tell you that you WILL get a fee from customs and it is expensive!

This is a good EU based place.

https://www.fine-tools.com/scharf.html

HRC makes good suggestions. Having said that I am more of a shapton guy, read cheap, and like the Ha no kuromaku series. 1k/5k is a very comprehensive paring but the 5k does not have the best feedback/feel to 'sharpening nuts' but for everyone else I think they are fine.

There are plenty of other good options out there as well but I am less familiar with other EU dealers so I will leave that suggestion to others.
 
The Naniwa Pro 400/1000/3000 is an option... and though I have and like all those stones I have to admit that they're pretty pricey nowadays. It's at least worth taking a look if another option turns out more affordable or more appropriate.

When it comes to dealers... there aren't a whole lot of options. Knivesandtools, feinewerkzeuge (finetools), japan-messer-shop and dictum are the few that come to (my) mind that have a decent selection at a decent price.
Beyond those there's always the option of importing from Japan through either metalmaster, ToolsfromJapan or any of the others. Shipping tends to be affordable, and even in case you get hit by customs it can still work out to be cheaper (though it's something you should calculate beforehand).
 
Yeah on a $100 budget I like sp1k+sp2k+ DIY strop
The Chosera/Naniwa Pro stones are cheaper what was posted
earlier and so this is really why they were posted here--
they seemed in the budget constraint of the OP.
 
There's a lot of options for knives too... the problem is just that most of them tend to be very expensive. :( So as a result only a handful are worth looking at...
 
Can you please link any of that shops for knives?. The ones i check was all in Uk, and got not so many options (or that seems to me).
 
For purposes of this discussion, import fees, duties, vat, etc, is JNS considered in Europe's or out? And Cleancut from Sweden?
 
Yea denmark is in eu, I think maxim lists his prices both inc and ex vat right? The "value" kit I've be been recommending lately in eu is shappy 1k and rika 5k fron fine-tools, and flattening either atoma 140 or sic grit (amazon.de) on glass/granite.
 
Yeah they're both in the EU. The major downside though is that within EU we pay VAT, whereas external customers do not. In the case of JNS, since he opts to absorb the full shipping cost into the cost of the knives, the result is that people in the US pay less for his stuff, even when it's shipped halfway across the world. :(
When it comes to knives, you're basically just completely shafted if you live in the EU.

A few shops that come to mind that are still somewhat affordable - though you should still compare prices on individual product: knives&tools, japan-messer-shop, japanesenaturalstones (if you stick to his affordable private brands),cuttingedgeknives (depending on the current exchange rate of the pound) and cleancut. There might be a few more that are decent but I can't think of them right now. But 90% of stores that sell at least some Japanese stuff (even stores that specialize in it) tend to be a major ripoff. And no it's not just because of the VAT... the price difference tends to be far larger.
Another store that probably has the greatest offering in all of Europe is japanische-kochmesser... but it happens to be in Switzerland. Which for customs purposes means that it might as well be in the heartland of China. :(
 
Jovidah said:
Yeah they're both in the EU. The major downside though is that within EU we pay VAT, whereas external customers do not. In the case of JNS, since he opts to absorb the full shipping cost into the cost of the knives, the result is that people in the US pay less for his stuff, even when it's shipped halfway across the world. :(
When it comes to knives, you're basically just completely shafted if you live in the EU.

A few shops that come to mind that are still somewhat affordable - though you should still compare prices on individual product: knives&tools, japan-messer-shop, japanesenaturalstones (if you stick to his affordable private brands),cuttingedgeknives (depending on the current exchange rate of the pound) and cleancut. There might be a few more that are decent but I can't think of them right now. But 90% of stores that sell at least some Japanese stuff (even stores that specialize in it) tend to be a major ripoff. And no it's not just because of the VAT... the price difference tends to be far larger.
Another store that probably has the greatest offering in all of Europe is japanische-kochmesser... but it happens to be in Switzerland. Which for customs purposes means that it might as well be in the heartland of China. :(
Click to expand...

Eh, but it is so much cheaper to go out and have fun. :) Give and take. I'll switch, you come live here and I'll go back to the EU and pay for expensive stones. :D (Yeah, region plays a role but I'll take my chances...lol.)
 
Sorry for post this late, just checked previus post deeply and i see you asqued me for budget and what kind of stone.

After a bit web research i prefer to stick to EU dealers, deliver can cost me very very much.

Budget is around 200 Eur for Flat stone, 1 or 2 stones (1 k and 5k or 6k) and a strop if i can.

I dont mind to soak the stone previusly ( was allready doing it), but if splash and go its the same in results i prefer that kind if priece its not a madness.

Plan is to use 5k stone as much as i can and once a week make a proper sharpen. But thats just in mi mind, dunno exactly how the knive will respond and depends a lot in the work i have that day.

Cant find any place in EU to check arashiyama stones in the webs u posted lately, can u help me whit that plz?.

Thx for all the help.
 
Think the initial set will be:
Chosera 1k.
Arashiyama 6k.
Atoma 140.

Think is enough as an initial set. I finally also take in consideration the comfort of splash and go, that will save me time if i need to sharpen before or after the work.

If all goes as i think i will buy the stones and knife next week, thx for all the help and opinions.

If you guys think in another stone that can be better in this week fell free to coment, will apreciate any recomendation you can do to me.
 
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