Sharpening Stone Recommendations

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If you want to compensate for splurging on the Glass Stones, you might consider flattening using loose silicon carbide grit and some flat, expendable surface; glass, tile, cinder block, etc. -- all work well enough.

Presumably, the Glass Stones' wear rate must be extremely slow to make up for their radical thinness, so it shouldn't be necessary to often go through the admittedly extra trouble of flattening with loose abrasive, as opposed to a diamond plate; given how seldom the stones should need flattening.
 
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My glass # 1000 after 11 months of (ab)use. In the background my new # 220. It is about 2,5 mm thicker. Slow wearing. I think so! (Notice that I haven’t bothered to flatten the # 1000 lately).
 
atoma sounds right. Now i understand why you guys buy $300 knifes....might as well after paying that for stones...
 
im gonna hold this buy. its currently at $296.00...which is probably next events grocery cost..so i better make more dough..lol

My King two sided is gonna have to do.
 
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Or hit-up amazon for a $28 King Deluxe 300 & open-box $40 Kuromaku 2k. Use the 2k for splash-&-go touch-ups. Perma soak the King stones. Flatten the 300 on whatever flat, abrasive surface is handy: brick, concrete, tile, whatever; use the 300 to flatten the other stones. Master using the King 6k without cutting into it, which is basically it's only major disadvantage.

Voila. Upgraded your coarse stone. Got the best single stone from the Shapton Pro line for splash-&-go. Addressed the flattening question. $70.
 
im gonna hold this buy. its currently at $296.00...which is probably next events grocery cost..so i better make more dough..lol

My King to sided is gonna have to do.

Nothing wrong with your King combo, I use two Kings, 4K for my work horse knives and the 6K for more delicate work. Bung in a next to nothing (£££) leather strop for the quick touch ups or for a gentle session after the stones and you will get stupidly sharp edges.
Good technique means you can sharpen on a brick but bad technique means you can't sharpen on the worlds most expensive stone. Learn and have fun doing it, my entire sharpening kit is about £80 ($115) and it is only the rabbit hole and the great advice on this forum that keeps me looking to buy some new stuff, but my kit really does not "need" anything else.
 
Nothing wrong with your King combo, I use two Kings, 4K for my work horse knives and the 6K for more delicate work. Bung in a next to nothing (£££) leather strop for the quick touch ups or for a gentle session after the stones and you will get stupidly sharp edges.
Good technique means you can sharpen on a brick but bad technique means you can't sharpen on the worlds most expensive stone. Learn and have fun doing it, my entire sharpening kit is about £80 ($115) and it is only the rabbit hole and the great advice on this forum that keeps me looking to buy some new stuff, but my kit really does not "need" anything else.

Yeah, i've been slowly getting the hang of the finer details. Stropping definitively improves the finished edge.
 
im gonna hold this buy. its currently at $296.00...which is probably next events grocery cost..so i better make more dough..lol

My King two sided is gonna have to do.

You could just get one stone at a time. Just get the one you need most first and then the rest later. I have almost 30 stones. And I certainly did not get all of them at once. Started out with 1k glass and a 15k or so spyderco UF many years ago. And then it kinda escalated. I actually started out with a sharpmaker in like 2005 or so. its a good system.
 
No idea! You’re probably right!
Do you possess the means to measure the new one you just bought? I'd be interested in knowing in the definitive.

I've seen many places list them as the same thickness as most of the others in the line-up; but @inferno regularly mentions that the 220 Glass is thicker, and obviously has considerable first hand experience with those stones.
 
I measured mine when new and it was 7mm or 7,5mm, dont remember. talking the 220. I'm an ex machinist and trained in measuring stuff down to 0,001mm. So i can confirm with that its either 7,0 or 7,5 from the factory.

the 220 glass is also light gray/blue in color compared to the rest of the stones that are white.

I have no idea about the 120 and 320 though. i think i saw a 320 at CC some time ago and IIRC it was the regular 5mm.
 
I just measured my severely abused glass 220 and its 6mm at the ends and 4,5 in the middle. after like 3 thinnings/flattenings of blades. measured with mitutoyo analog vernier calipers.

btw no need to flatten this stone. use other parts of it to flatten it (to use up all of it)!
 
Do you possess the means to measure the new one you just bought? I'd be interested in knowing in the definitive.

I've seen many places list them as the same thickness as most of the others in the line-up; but @inferno regularly mentions that the 220 Glass is thicker, and obviously has considerable first hand experience with those stones.

Not really I’m afraid. Only a simple ruler. I trust inferno though. And fwiw the #220 did strike me as just a tad thicker than the 3000 and 8000 before I read any comments here.
 
@inferno
Oh, it's just that your previous statement --
the 220 is 7mm abrasive if i'm not mistaking.
-- made it sound like you weren't sure...

And seeing as how the stone @Carl Kotte just bought is brand new, it just seems like a great opportunity for me to be more clear on the matter -- and make a better, more informed decision later if I decide to spend the money on one or several of these to find out what the hype is about.

Afterall, this is yet another situation where your experience is at odds with Shapton's own documentation:
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http://www.shapton.co.jp/en said:
Sharpening Stone
Product Number: 50101
micron: 66.82
mesh: 220
Dimensions: 210 x 70 x 10mm (Abrasive Layer 5mm)
Weight: approx. 360g
http://www.shapton.co.jp/en/#products
 
you wanna know something weird?

my new 6k gray is 6,0mm
my old 1k is 6,3mm
my newish 3k is 6,5mm
my 2k 6,2mm
my 4k 6,3mm
my 500 double thick is 11,2mm

but yeah the 220 was thicker than all my other glass stones. 1-1,5mm it seems. you can easily see this when you hold them in your hand.
I think the 500 DT must have been 13 or so when new. Never even thought about measuring it before now.
 
It appears i actually dont have any thinner glass stones than 11mm or so in total (and these are used, some for several years)). and the glass seems to be 4,5-5mm thick. the 220 is thicker than the rest of them and the thinnest from factory seems to be the 6k gray one. its 6mm and its brand new (I re-bought it since i missed it).
 
I'm baffled! :) ***. are they giving us more stone for the money?? seem like that.

Looks like the regular white ones are most likely in the neighborhood of 6,5mm when new and the 220 is 7,5. all i know is that I noticed quite obviously that it was thicker when i got it than the other ones.

Btw those measurements i posted above is with me trying to measure the abrasive alone not including the glass. so the calipers are slightly tilted and then i simply eyeball it. the calipers are on the stone. should be good for +-0,3mm or so i guess. I think i got my 2k at least 5 years ago. but then i was using the sharpmaker mostly.

I must say they have quite good durability/longevity.
 
btw measuring the glass part seems hard since its chamfered. sometimes more than others. and glass is transparent so its vert hard for me to eyeball this. much harder than the abrasive. but i'm guessing its between 4 and 5mm on all of them, some seems thinner. could be an optical illusion though. they could possibly all be the same thickness. measurement error would be above 0,5mm at the very least with the glass part.
 
@Carl Kotte
A ruler would be fine. Assuming the person taking the measurement knows what they're doing, a ruler graduated in millimeters is perfectly suitable for saying if something is 5, 6, 7, or 8 mm thick.

Or so it seems to me.
 
you still have to judge that one. but its quite easy to measure the total thickness of a stone. if the ruler starts at 0,0 that is. i think carl will find the same things i did though. more or less.

its also quite unlikely carls and my experience/measurements differs since we live in the same town and buy stones from the same place...
 
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@Carl Kotte
A ruler would be fine. Assuming the person taking the measurement knows what they're doing, a ruler graduated in millimeters is perfectly suitable for saying if something is 5, 6, 7, or 8 mm thick.

Or so it seems to me.

Abrasive approx 7 mm. Whether I know what I am doing with the ruler... well, I don’t know whether I know that.
 
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