Follow up thread on sharpening. When I was smoother choosing BU vs. BD, I started some talk about the Spyderco stones I use. I said that I was getting tired of spending so much time sharpening us these hard stones, and I was getting some Shaptons and would post a comparison of the stones.
As with my non scientific plane comparison which was run in a perfect haphazardly manner, and finely tuned for what I was doing at the time, this comparison is more of the same.
So I called the official distributor for Shapton stones and talked with a guy, who I think is the person behind these stones. Good guy, really into sharpening, and sharpening methods. We talked for a while, had a good conversation about sharpening and stones, and I bought his recommendation, a 500, 2000, and 8000 glass stone set with a holder. Which was different than what I had thought I would need, which was 220,1000,4000,8000.
I sharpened up my bench chisels today. Well, I gotta say that I’m very pleased with the stones, they cut probably 2-3 times faster than my old stones. And that’s what I wanted, 2 minutes a chisel, not 5 or so. The finish of the 2000 stone is not polished (not that I thought it would be). It’s a very refined scratch pattern, and sharp enough to be called ready for work. For a comparison, The Spyderco medium stone leaves a finish much more polished than the 2000 Shapton, somewhere between the 2000 and 8000 Shapton, and the Spyderco fine stone is more like the Shapton 8000. But a Shapton stone cuts what is needed in 10-20 swipes with very light pressure, the Spydercos take very heavy finger pressure and more than double the swipes.
I ran the chisels up the range of the Shaptons (8k), and tested the edge on Mahogany endgrain. They could all cut translucent shavings with effort I would expect from a well sharpened tool, and left a polished wood finish.
The chisel edges did have a semi mirror polish with an underlying superfine scratch pattern. I then finished them on the ultra fine Spyderco and rechecked the edge and cut. Definitely more polished, and maybe, and I say maybe a little sharper in that the effort to shave endgrain was less, maybe. Was it worth the extra minute or so to get the mirror polish, I don’t know, sharp is sharp. But what would be interesting to check is edge longevity. But I doubt that I’ll spend the effort to figure that one out, I’ll about all out of scientific.
Last note, I’ll probably not be buying anymore superfine grit sandpaper since the 500 Shapton can rough an edge so fast it’s ridiculous. Now I know why there is a warning on the 220 stone. And I think I see a 16K Shapton in my future, well into the future anyway. Definitely see something in my near future for flattening these Shaptons. Buy one thing, then you gotta buy another. Enjoy.