I currently have a shapton 1000, BBW and Coticule which i use for all my sharpening.
I think I may benefit from a stone in the 3k region to use between teh shapton and the BBW.
What are your thoughts on this and which stone would you recommend? Naniwa Pro 3000? Shapton Glass 3000? Others?
IMO the problem with the BBW is its a razor stone, i.e. it leaves a keen but very smooth edge so unless you are dealing with raw fish, it on its own is not a great kitchen knife edge. However, it can be used in creating a hybrid edge so I tried it tonight on AS and AEBL.
I tried it with the following stones.
Chosera 800
Shapton Kuromaku, 1K, 1.5k, 2K.
Naniwa Pro 2K
Ouka 3K
The BBW is a bite killer so while I've used stones like the Ouka / King 8K combo to make really super keen edges with good bite, the Ouka / BBW combo is kinda meh. Decently keen, but it killed the Oukas bite.
Dropping to the Shapton 1K. While its got decent bite on its own, no surprise, its more like an 800 grit stone, its not that keen and the BBW struggled to get enough keenness out of it before killing the bite to be a good combo.
And so in various ways all the other stones fell into meh land with the BBW except the Chosera 800, which is more like a 1200 or 1500. For some reason it produced a reasonably decent hybrid edge with the BBW.
All that said, its was a good edge, but not a great edge.
So I got out the silver bullet and fixed it. Got out an Aoto and made some BBW / Aoto slurry.
The Chosera 800 followed by edge trailing stropping on the BBW with Aoto slurry produced a seriously keen edge with awesome bite.
If slurry blending isn't your thing, taking the BBW out of the mix altogether might be a better way to go.
The Shapton Kuromaku 2K, Naniwa Pro 2K and Ouka 3K, stropped on 3 micron diamonds all produce edges I think are pretty awesome for non raw fish work.
If you don't like stropping on diamonds but want something keener than a 2K or 3K, the Shapton Glass 4K** and King 4K both produce a really nice blend of keenness with bite.
6K and up you are getting into pretty dodgy territory bite wise. You tend to get edges that are blisteringly keen but it doesn't take them long before they are gliding on tomato skins rather than cutting them.
As to the Naniwa Pro 3K you mention. If it's anything like the Chosera 3K, to me its not got enough bite to make the cut, pardon the pun.
And the Glass 3K**? Maybe.
**Shapton edges have decent bite at their grit ranges but with the exception of the Glass 2K, the 1K and up Glass stones have a very distinctive feel that is a little love it or hate it so if you don't have a Glass stone already, you might want to borrow one before investing in them.