I was familiar with Shapton® Glass Stone™-s long before I got them. Then I bought Shapton® Glass Stone™ 220 Grit which was used for very heavy duty repair/bevel reprofiling, but that's fairly rare even for me. I mean very few knives come with edge damage that severe, or with stick bevels that thick. I've had a lot of other Japanese Whetstones already, so I never really looked into other Shapton®-s. Then, in 2010 Takeshi, the owner of aframestokyo.com introduced me to Shaptons. I got a set of three Shapton stones, which gave me a very good opportunity to evaluate them. Good thing is I was not under any time pressure and I could test them against various knives.
General
- Shapton® 2000 grit glass stone is the same size as the rest of the glass stones, measures 210mm(8.25")x70mm(2.75"). The height is about 10mm, where the stone itself is 5mm, and the rest is the glass base. Because the base is a glass, you need an appropriate holder for it. You will need a holder for any baseless stone anyway, table tops are not really suitable surface for the stones. On the touch, 2000 grit stone feels quite smooth, definitely smoother than 1000-1200 grit stones I've used before, including my 1200 Grit King Whetstone. As for the 2000 grit itself, that wouldn't be my first choice if I was buying stones for my sharpening needs. Normally, when I do detailed sharpening, I go with double the previous stone grit pattern. 220->500->700->1000-1200->2000-3000->5000->10000->Microabrasives. Now, 700 grit isn't really double of 500, but does work well smoothing the surface of the edge after rough stones. After 700 jumping to 2K grit is a bit too much to my liking, but if you are willing to spend extra time to work with the edge sure, why not. Overall, it'd amount roughly to the same time 1000 and 2000 vs. doing more time on 2000. However, you'd wear 2K stone excessively, and with Shaptons being just 5mm thick, you might think about that. As you might already know, Shapton Glass stones do not need soaking in water, you just sprinkle them and proceed with sharpening. Whether or not to use Nagura is more up to you, but if you are interested in my opinion, then in my experience using Nagura does help with both: cutting speed and more uniform scratch pattern.Performance
- 2000 Grit Shapton® Glass Stone™ is definitely a high performance stone in its class, i.e. 2K grit. I am mainly referring to its cutting speed. Once you factor in stone life expectancy or durability, Shaptons don't really fare well due to their 5mm thickness. Anyway, I've tested it on about dozen different alloys in 3 major hardness groups(soft 54-58, medium 59-62, hard 63-70) mainstream and custom knives come in, so I did cover everything from 54 to 67HRC. The results were just what I expected. Most difficulties were encountered when I was working with high hardness, high wear resistance alloys like: CPM 10V, CPM S125V, CPM S110V, Aritsugu Gokinko steel. On the other hand, even very hard, low alloy carbon steels like Aogami 1 or Shirogami 1, Aogami Super steels were easier to sharpen. As for the more conventional stuff, budget/midrange stainless alloys like X50CrMoV15, AISI 420, 440A, and tools steels like AISI D2 were very easy to work with.For 2K grit stone Shapton is aggressive. More aggressive that my 2000-3000 grit synthetic Aoto(Blue) whetstone. And the difference increases the more the stone is used. Shaptons don't produce finer slurry as you work on it, but Aoto does, so do the natural stones. For me that slurry breakdown is an advantage, as it gradually refines the edge as you work on it, without changing the stone. On the other hand, if you are concerned with purely cutting speed then Shapton's got the advantage, but with 2K stone and above that, it is really unlikely you need to cut a lot of metal, unless the knife is 6 feet long. Personally for me, Aoto is a better choice, primarily because f its considerably larger size compared to Shapton 2k. Slurry breakdown is an added advantage for me. Still, I did find use for 2K Shapton, mainly when I was pressed for time and I had to put a serviceable edge on a knife which I didn't think need 100K refined edges. Bunch of the knives I borrowed were like that, few times when I was hosting large parties at my place we'd have several people working in the kitchen, so I'd break out half a dozen "user grade" knives, sharpen/touch up them quickly. That's not to say Shapton 2k won't be good middle step for if you are going for highly refined edges. The edge will need a bit more work with higher grit stone(when comparing to 2-3K Aoto), but that's about it.
Conclusions
- Pretty good stone for quick touchups and even small chip or roll fixes. Does what is was designed to do, or what 2K grit stone is expected to do. My main issue with it is the same as with other Shaptons, durability or life expectancy. Despite of what some of the reviews and rumors say, Shaptons are not permanent stones, nothing really is. They will wear down as you use them. 1000-2000 grit stones are amongst the most used grade for most of the people out there. Not so much for me and others like me who are going for 100K edges. However, 2k stone can provide very sharp edge and that's where most of the people stop, which is just fine. For high carbide value steels I stop around 1000 grit too, although those knives don't need touchups that often. The main issue with average users is that they use one stone for most of the sharpening needs and that equals excessive wear. 2K stone wont' remove as much metal in the same amount of time than 500 grit, it's that simple. So, depending on your sharpening habits 2K stone may not last all that long, and 5mm thick stone will be that much less durable. If you do one sharpening session a year, then I suppose you are fine.Related reading:
Last updated - 05/19/19