Updating my sharpening supplies

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stringer

stringer

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I have a badly dished and nearly wore out Shapton Glass 500. I also have a 2000, 4000, and 8000 that are newer and in good shape. I have a ten year old and worn out diamond steel lapping plate. Not sure of the brand. It has worked well but has lost most of it's diamonds, hence the badly dished SG 500.

My work setup is Naniwa Chosera 1000 and 2000. I'm not going to mess with that. They are quick and never dish. When that isn't doing the trick, I take the knives home for more rigorous thinning and sharpening on the Shaptons.

So I need some new coarse stones and a new stone flattener that works well with Shapton Glass and I am looking for suggestions. Budget is about $200 total. I know I want Shapton Glass. Just not sure which grits. How do you decide between 120/220/320/500/1000?

Right now I'm thinking of buying a 320 and a 1000. The 500 always seemed not coarse enough for changing the shape of an edge or doing heavy thinning or fixing a chip, but too coarse for starting my normal maintenance progression.

As far as flatteners I know diamond plates probably work the best. What's the most affordable one that works?

Has anyone tried this thing?

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Double-Time-Flattening-Stone-P1545.aspx

I like the fact that it is extra large and pretty cheap. And that it has two different grits for fine and coarse stones.

Thanks in advance for any help and insights.
 
JKI has a flattening plate that people really seem to like for 40$ but that's out of stock so you'd have to wait. I can't speak to a preference on the glass stones but Peter Nowlan seems to love his 220.
 
I'm going to suggest something different than a coarse and medium fine stone. Get an Atoma 600 and an Atoma 1200 replacement sheet. Stick the replacement sheet to the other side and you have a double sided sharpening plate. The 600 is also fast enough to flatten stones. You can buy them for a very reasonable price on Yahoo Japan Auctions.

Here's the 600: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/l460024138 and here's the 1200 replacement sheet: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/o253920757

I have the same setup and it takes no time at all to sharpen a really dull knife. I use the 600 side to flatten all my stones as well.
 
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Regarding the stones, Jon sells sets of 320/2k/6k and I don’t find any of those to be too big of a jump; just remember to do fewer strokes on a 320 than you would on a 500. For that matter I’ll go 220-1k, though I don’t know about 220-2k. Reshaping and repair on a 320 will definitely be less tiresome than a 500, so your 320/1k sounds good. I’ve been thinning on SG 120 and 220 lately, but the kind of thinning that really ought to be done with a belt grinder.

On the flattening plates I have only used Atoma 140 aside from one cheap one that liked to stick. The JKI one certainly looks like it’s worth trying.
 
chinacats said:
The flattening plate from jki is a different price so not sure what you're referencing here...this is an excellent platefor the cost.

https://www.japaneseknifeimports.co...accessories/products/diamond-flattening-plate
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Either way, it's out of stock. I have a similar-looking SK11 brand 150/600 plate that was ~$30 and is adequate. Can something as prosaic as a flattening stone be anything more than adequate?

Diamond plates in general are a poor choice for flattening coarse stones (Shapton agrees). SiC powder (which doesn't have to be Shapton-branded) on a flat surface (glass, granite, etc.) is much faster and leaves a more aggressive finish.

King Deluxe 300 and Sigma Power 400 are very good coarse waterstones, they don't seem to dish or clog at all.
 
I don’t have experience with Shapton glass 500 and up, but I do use the glass 120, 220, and 320 with Shapton Pros (1000, 2000, 6000, 8000, and 12k). I personally would recommend the 320 glass. It has plenty of shaping power on your carbons, and even ZDP 189 gets sharpened well on it (of course though you do notice a little dip in cutting speed). For a Shapton, it’s also one of the better ones in terms of feedback.
 
nopomo said:
King Deluxe 300 and Sigma Power 400 are very good coarse waterstones, they don't seem to dish or clog at all.
Click to expand...

Doesn't dish? Certainly its not ridiculously soft like other King stones, but any serious thinning, on a single knife, is going to cause it to dish. With thinning though it is easy enough in many cases to use the whole stone, so you can keep things relatively flat if you want. I get out the machinist's scale and mark the high spots and then concentrate on those areas as I work. And of course don't go too hard, you'll just remove more stone instead of metal.
 
PalmRoyale said:
I'm going to suggest something different than a coarse and medium fine stone. Get an Atoma 600 and an Atoma 1200 replacement sheet. Stick the replacement sheet to the other side and you have a double sided sharpening plate. The 600 is also fast enough to flatten stones. You can buy them for a very reasonable price on Yahoo Japan Auctions. Here's the 600: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/l460024138 and here's the 1200 replacement sheet: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/o253920757
Click to expand...

How expensive is the shipping to the States?
 
Atoma is avail in the states but I would not recommend them for sharpening knives. Flattening the good stones, yes.
 
I forgot about this thread. Thank you all for your suggestions. I did more research and decided for most of the things I need to do coarse work on there are probably easier options than stones. So I bought a 1x30 belt/disc sander and a bunch of sanding belts and hand sanding paper instead. I mostly am restoring old beat up rusty carbons, reprofiling vintage Chinese cleavers, and thinning all kinds of stuff. I did get a cheap combination stone from the Asian grocery for some rough bevel work. If I keep the heavy duty work away from the expensive stones they seem to last much longer and dish much more slowly. Now I just gotta find a cheaper way to buy sandpaper than Home Depot and AutoZone.
 
Sounds like you made a good choice. A couple years ago I arrived at a 1x42 for similar reasons. The heavy lifting you're talking about is torturous on stones. Be careful not to fall down the knife making hole though. That's where mine lead me!
 
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