Woodcraft Natural Water Stone or Shapton

[Chuck Tringo]

Has anyone used the natural polishing waterstones from woodcraft (link below) ? I now have 2k and 6k Shapton Glass stones and want to get one finer for polishing....I was leaning towards the 16k Glass Stone, but when I saw this, the price is right, but it doesn't have much feedback. Any opinions would be appreciated, thanks.

http://www.woodcraft.com/Family/2004920/Natural-Polishing-Water-Stone.aspx

[David Weaver]

Shapton. That stone is much more appropriate as a razor hone, it cuts very slowly, like maybe a fifth as fast as a man-made waterstone, and in my experience (I have one) slower than an oilstone. I have never tried tough steel on it. It is nice for straight razors because it doesn't cut too fast and raise a big wire edge before you know what's going on.

Buy the shapton 12/15k pro instead of the 16K glasstone. In my experience, the pro does better across a wider variety of steels. I never would've believed that (i figured they were the same thing) until I tried them both side by side. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I gathered trying them.

[Ben Rivenbark]

I've got one and have used it with great success as David commented - for straight razors. Haven't tried it with plane blades, but I think it *could* work. It cuts slow enough that i wouldn't want to try it freehand. I would definitely use a jig.

If you want to get extremely sharp for cheap the following will work well after your 6000 shapton:

Get some Mothers aluminum and metal polish from the cleaning section of your auto parts store. Should be less than five bucks.

Pick up one of the green chromium oxide crayons from the buffing department of your favorite tool stores. I have a stick from Lowes, one from woodcraft, and one from who knows where. The green bars are actually more aluminum oxide than anything, but will still get things super sharp. I also have pure chromium oxide powder as well as a liquid suspension, and these both work much better. The comfort difference in a straight razor shave with the green bars vs. The pure chromium oxide is huge.

Get a 12x12 granite tile from Lowes. It may not come with a certificate of flatness, but when checked against my granite surface plate, i can't tell a difference. I had the nice lady at Lowes cut my granite tile into four 8x3 and one 12x4 plates.

Tape a sheet of regular computer paper to your granite tile (cut to fit). Dab a few spots of metal polish on the paper and smear around. Take it easy on this; a litlle dab'll do ya. Let dry. On your other piece of paper scribble some of the green crayon. I use a cross hatch pattern. You don't need to have the whole thing pool table green.

Using pull strokes only, hone on the metal polish. The surface will be a mirror. You can't over do this part. Repeat on the green.

Remember to do the back of the blade, too. The ruler trick is handy for this. Also, on the front bevel, I would do just a micro bevel with this.

For 15 bucks, this will get you very sharp edges for several years. Some people complain that stropping rounds your edge, but the paper compresses so little that it is imperceptible to me.