Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

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MikeT
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Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by MikeT »

Is it worth the money? Absolutely
Would I buy it again? With what I know now, no. My problem is, I have no idea how to flatten this thing.

This is my first high quality stone. I bought it because I have a drawer full of cheap dull knives and wanted to learn sharpen. My first victims were a couple of pretty old Gerber utility knives. Sharpening on the Shapton was going slow. I researched the knives and learned that they are probably 440C, so expected to go slow, even on a course stone. The Henckels went better.

Ok I now have used this stone for 8 or so very dull knives, some with damage. It kicked butt, and still looks flat to the eye. Shapton glass is reputed to stay flat for a while but I know it will need maintenance eventually. I assumed that I would be able to buy a diamond plate that would flatten all my stones, but reading more, stones this course tend to destroy plates. The Shapton flattening plate is not recommended for stones this course. Neither are the Nanos.

Some people flatten using sandpaper on a granite or cast iron surface, but I understand that does not work for a ceramic stone this course.

Some people grind flat with lose 90 or so silicon carbide grit on granite, cast iron, or glass, but that sacrifices the reference surface. If that were really a good idea, we could probably buy little jars of that stuff at CKTG for a buck, instead of $7 for a pound on Amazon.

All in all, the Shapton Glass 220 seems very nice, but unless I am missing something, I should have gotten a diamond plate instead for my coarsest stone.
jmcnelly85
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by jmcnelly85 »

Have you tried diamond flattening plates? I use an atoma 140 and it does an excellent job, people swear by the cktg 140, and Ken offers some really coarse plates for high speed flattening of very coarse stones.
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Kit Craft
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by Kit Craft »

I've not tried the glass 220 but I flatten my other 220s with a CKTG140 plate. I have noticed zero issues doing things. I had a pro 220 and still have the pink brick 220 and the plate has served me well for both of these. I agree with Mcnelly, give the plate a go.
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Jeff B
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by Jeff B »

I use an Atoma 140 on the SP220 with no ill effects. Use a plate on that stone, you'll be fine. Mark has a new 80 grit plate if you would feel more comfortable with that. https://www.chefknivestogo.com/ck80grdipl.html
If God wanted me to be a vegetarian he wouldn't have made animals taste so good.
MikeT
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by MikeT »

Thanks, I will give one of the $30 plates a go.
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ken123
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by ken123 »

You can flatten well with the Atoma 140. The issue with stones like these is less an issue of flatness than one of texture.
If you cut through the surface with an Atoma 140 you get a flat surface BUT if you look closely you will find that the surface particles have been cleaved in half or cut even fiber. The result is a stone that cuts weakly. It has lost its ' balls'. The alternative is to rough up the stone surface after flattening with a very coarse grit stone- 60 or 24 grit.

The difference is obvious. It is a stone reborn :) Alternatively you can use a 60 or 46 grit diamond plate as well. I refer to this as retexturizing a stone surface.

---
Ken
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by jacko9 »

Ken,

If the 140 Atoma diamond plate leaves a damaged texture on a 220 stone, won't a 60 diamond plate do the same thing?
Bob Z
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by Bob Z »

ken123 wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:55 pm You can flatten well with the Atoma 140. The issue with stones like these is less an issue of flatness than one of texture.
If you cut through the surface with an Atoma 140 you get a flat surface BUT if you look closely you will find that the surface particles have been cleaved in half or cut even fiber. The result is a stone that cuts weakly. It has lost its ' balls'. The alternative is to rough up the stone surface after flattening with a very coarse grit stone- 60 or 24 grit.

The difference is obvious. It is a stone reborn :) Alternatively you can use a 60 or 46 grit diamond plate as well. I refer to this as retexturizing a stone surface.
Ken
I just had an experience like this with my new "Basement Stone". Bought a new https://www.chefknivestogo.com/tsstwagy18.html with idea of some thinning and maybe give it away after some work. The Imanishi did well just a little work and then i went to a sp500 and stopped there.

My next victim was my Tojiro ITK 180 gyuto. I wanted to thin it and got into serious wailing on this poor knife. Maybe it was the light or the color of the dark stone but i didnt see the stone loading up, but it just kind of quit on me. So i flattened with Marks diamond plate, tried my nagura to clean it and kept going. Eventually I gave up and didnt get a new blade road like i wanted.

So i flattened the stone again and put it up to dry. In the mean time the ITK looks like this:
IMG_2497.JPG
When the stone dried the next day it looked hazy but the surface wasnt nearly the same as the coarseness of the other side. I got out my coarsest sand paper, and tried the diamond plate again but looks like I now have a two grit stone.

While i didnt get the end result i wanted, the edge on the ITK ended up one of the best edges i ever did. I wasnt trying to sharpen it just thin it but must have "wobbled" as Mark would say.

My question to Ken would be what grit do i have now?
Carlo
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by Carlo »

I have one of these “stone fixers” I picked up before I realized a coarse diamond plate probably would have been a good solution. Curious re whether there’s any drawbacks as a flattener for other coarse stones -it seems to be working well so far.

Also curious about using the back as a low-grit stone on knives-I assume I would flatten it on the sidewalk...

https://www.mtckitchen.com/100-grit-sha ... one-fixer/
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lsboogy
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by lsboogy »

I flattened my stones (all of them) on the front steps for years - how I was shown to flatten in Japan 30+ year ago, now I have a couple of diamond flattening plates - definitely better than the steps, but the steps work well still.

I also have a "Basement Stone" - have only used it a couple times, and it loads so you need to spray it often. It's my only "coarse" stone outside of a couple of old Arkansas stones and a Belgian blue from my parents. I rarely use any coarse stone, usually start at 1K for most things. But my neighbor asked me to sharpen his aging global chef knife a few minutes ago, and the thing has not been sharpened since he bought it 8 years ago. I just put my email in on waiting list for a pink brick (thanks Kit for the suggestion) as my neighbor is leaving for Puerto Rico for a month this weekend, so I have some time. Gonna try a coarse stone on a knife that needs it - his global chef knife would not cut the skin on the back of my hand without a good bit of pressure. Probably take me half an hour on a 1K stone to get a decent edge.
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lsboogy
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by lsboogy »

I talked with Ken (ken123) for a bit today - going to get a new green Nubatama 220 stone from him - First time I will have such a coarse stone - wish me luck.
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by ken123 »

Ive found the 220 glass dishes a bit fast gor my tastes. The 140 Atoma will work well for flattening it if done early, but these days I would go for the 60 grit plate I carry. Its just SO much faster,

Ken
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lsboogy
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by lsboogy »

I absolutely ate a chip out of one of my pocket knives (buck Whittaker climb knife) - just 440C but I cut some wire and other things with it a work today and left a good chip in the thing, and a little wave in the blade from scraping some oxides off a few inconel pins. Customer was in, so I was a bit cavalier - the Nubatama 220 took everything out quick - a ten minute journey on a Nubatama 1200 and 5 minutes on a 6K Nubatama and the knife again pops hairs
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Re: Shapton Glass 220 thoughts

Post by RonAZ »

I've got one of Ken's 60 grit plates and it works great for flattening the 120 and 220 GS stones.
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