Suehiro Gokumyo 10k, Chosera 10k or Yaginoshima Asagi?


rmihai

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You’ve got apples and oranges here... The first two are form the, "Let’s see if we can get a Kasumi finish using the most exotic matrix we can find” school of stone manufacturing... and the third is a natural Japanese waterstone... The first two are the extreme-end of exotic matrix artificial waterstones costing $225 and $275, respectively. The C10K is generally considered the finest artificial stone currently available... The Yaginoshima Asagi is something else entirely...

 

There are sharpening-centric forums that delve into the properties of abrasive media in more detail than anyone would believe...

 

http://www.japanesenaturalstones.com/
https://hocktools.wordpress.com/

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/
http://www.chefknivestogoforum.com/

 

For personal reference, I've got the C10K – it’s very good.

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I had a friend that made frequent trips to Japan for a while.  I told him what he should spend some money on, and resell when he got back home.  The benefit for me was that I got to play with the stones.  I bought some Chosera stones from him but ended up selling them.   I decided that a Naniwa Snow White 8k, and then jump to Sigma 13k was all I ever needed for stones.  Those stones are so fast on my steel, and have great feel, that it made no sense to me to spend any more money on something "better".  I do use Diamond Lapping Film on granite surface plate if I want to go beyond sometimes, which is most of the time just because I can, and it takes so few strokes.  There was no feel to me with a Goku 20, and I don't polish swords, so I so no benefit to me to keep it.

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==>I decided that a Naniwa Snow White 8k, and then jump to Sigma 13k was all I ever needed for stones.

Those are nice stones -- are they still selling the snow white?

 

 

I’ve got the Chosera and they certainly cut fast, but are finicky (generally agreed) and frustrating (much of the time -- for me)... I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush --- many experienced sharpeners use them faithfully and without issue, but not me... I treat sharpening as a necessary evil, do it as infrequently as possible and generally don’t like the water, mess, etc associated with waterstones... To perform their best, the Chosera need a short-stroke freehand technique that I can’t carry-off -- I don't have the experience or skill, and I'm not about to spend time developing it -- As I said, I hate sharpening... I’m OK with the 800, 2K and 3K but tend to glaze the 400, 600 and 1K... I can’t get the 5K to do much for me... I can work the 10K, but only because I’ve got a collection of natural stones that I've used for a decade... My biggest frustration is the 1K --- it's still a mystery to me... There are a lot of knowledgeable folks who maintain it’s the fastest/best/etc edge former available now or ever, but I can’t make it work – it’s a technique thing – and I don’t have it...

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For me, it's all about speed and feel.  Back when I first ordered better sharpening stones than anyone I knew had ever even imagined, I taught myself how to get a sharp edge. There was no internet then.  I ordered the stones from an ad in the Whole Earth Catalog. 

 

 I never knew anything about feeling for a wire edge, so I just learned by the feel of the steel on stone.  You can tell when you've done what a stone can do by the feel, and move one.  Of course, the back is always flattened to knock off the wire edge, but other than that the wire edge never meant anything to me.  These first stones were Arkansas up through translucent, and all the other woodworker/carpenters I knew had never known anything about anything better than Carborundum.  I used them for probably close to 30 years.  They work great, but take a lot of strokes.

 

Sometime in the early '90s I decided to try water stones, and right off found that they were probably ten times as fast to an edge as the oilstones.  I used Norton stones up until a year or so ago, and had this friend going to Japan often........  The first thing I found out about these better stones was that they were several factors faster than the Norton stones.  What takes 50 strokes on an oilstone might take a dozen on the Norton stones, and 5 or 6 on these fancier stones.  The faster the stone cuts, the better the feel.

 

Since I use feel, diamonds and the harder stones like Shaptons, ceramics, and even some of the manmade water stones just don't give me that feedback, with diamonds being the worst.  Since time is important to me, stones that need work with a Nagura, some other Zen state of mind, or that wear really fast aren't in the preferred list for me either.  I like stones that don't need a lot of fiddling with, will get to work quickly, and get it done in a hurry.

 

Microbevels are almost required for oil stones, not entirely necessary with the Nortons, but not worth the bother with the high end stones, and certainly no need for anything but flat on the stones for the backs.  Just hit the whole bevel, whether flat or hollow.

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==>Sigma 13k beats my Cho 10k

Apples and oranges...

 

They really are different animals – they are designed for different markets, metallurgies and sharpening techniques...

 

The Select-II is a hard ceramic-matrix stone for the chef and tool market... It’s a decent stone... Most discussions center on its characteristics relative to the SS and Shapton-Pro...

 

The Chosera 10K was designed as a cost-effective alternative ($275) to deep strata Jnats for the sword polishing professional. To perform, the 10K is best used with the short-stroke technique employed in traditional sword polishing:

 

 

 

 

If you don’t use the 10K as designed, you’ll still get decent results, but not outstanding... The 10K (unlike the rest of the Chosera and Pro-series) was not intended for the tool or chef market... On the various sharpening blogs, there's a cute story of how the 10K made its way from a sword-making into tool making, but suspect it’s apocryphal...

 

If you adopt the quick short-stroke sharpening technique (watch the videos), the 10K produces singular results with the feel (buttery) and final polish of natural stones:  www.swordpolisher.com/Keisho.html -- Note: natural stones don't leave the bright mirror polish of synthetic waterstones (think ShaptonPro), but impart a micro-serration polish that has a slightly dull appearance (there's a name for it, but I forget what it is)... It’s the micro-serration edge that cleaves wood fibers like nothing else... Just because an edge is 'sharp', doesn’t mean it efficiently cleaves wood fibers... There are extensive write-ups that explain why a synthetic stone can leave a bright mirror polish, but it’s the Jnat's dull finish that wins sharpening contests... Natural finishing stones are very expensive... The Chosera 10k was an attempt to get those characteristics in a more cost effective package.

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Quote:  "Those are nice stones -- are they still selling the snow white?"

 

I just checked Tools from Japan, and they have it listed for $83.   I'm still using a Chosera 3k which covers the jump from 1k Sigma to the 8k Naniwa for polishing backs.  For those that don't know, the Naniwa was a predecessor to the Chosera, and the Snow White was so popular that I guess they still make them.  If I'm remembering correctly the Norton 8k goes for about the same price as the Naniwa Snow White, and if you are considering the Norton, get the Naniwa instead.  For roughly 1/3 of the price of the Chosera 10k, you can buy the Snow White.  Add a Sigma 13k, and have money left over with all you will ever need in stones.

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Posted a couple of videos on the traditional short-stroke technique... Worth a watch.... There’s a lot lost in the videos, but you get the idea of the basic short-stroke technique used in the final polishing stages -- I believe one of the videos specifically demonstrates the technique on the finishing stone... Traditional tool honing on Jnats is similar, but can’t find a video to post. Was taught the traditional technique --- but lack the experience to do it well. Maybe someday – but until then, I stick with Richard Kell’s jigs...

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