I have both, and am wondering which you'd use first in a progression (not that I'd do that small a leap), but compare scratch, cut, and how you'd use one in contrast to the other. How would you compare the edge left by each, if it were the last stone used?
Thanks for the help,
1315...out.
I do not have the Suehiro, but I have, well, most of the Shapton Glass series. They are wonderful stones: fast, enjoyable sharpening feel, slow-wearing, dense. I use them a lot. They are designed to be used in 3X leaps, a thing I've done many times, and it works well -- no trouble at all to get the scratches off.
However, they tend to leave smooth, clean, keen edges, so I almost never use them as the final stone on a kitchen knife on which I want some tooth, except for very light deburring on the 30K or 16k. I use naturals for a final edge: JNat suita & Aizu, BBW, Washita, soft ark. There are other synthetics that would likely work well for this purpose as well, but I'll leave that to others with more experience.
I've actually revisited this several times, thinking I must be wrong. Playing with this recently, I did find a Shapton Glass stone that would produce a good kitchen edge with the right amount of tooth, given light pressure and some refinement time. But it was the 500, not the 4000.
