Shapton Glass Waterstone - 16,000

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Where to begin describing this remarkable stone?

I'm a competent sharpener, using a variety of methods. More and more, I use a Tormek for sharpening, but when it comes to my plane irons, I'm very, very particular and do those by hand.

Until this point I had a 1,000 grit, a 4,000 and an 8,000 grit stone. And with these I get excellent results. My litmus test for sharpness is once I can easily shaves the hair off my forearm, it's good to go.

So fast forward to the Shapton purchase. I was really hesitant to spend a lot of money on a stone that I wasnt sure would provide results that were THAT much better than what my current stones were Giving me. 

But I bit the bullet and went for it on Amazon, $140.

It arrived in 2 days time and the packaging was really cool and nice. (it's a Japanese company)

It's a Waterstone that's mounted on a bed of glass.

The first thing I noticed while using it is how nice and large the surface area is. It's 8-1/4" x 2-3/4".

So it's wider than my other stones and that size feels almost luxurious to use with my wider blades.

The next thing is that it cuts so fast I couldn't believe it. It's twice as fine as my finest Stone (8k) but it cuts like a 250.

And you only need a few small spritzes of water, no need to soak it before use.

So all this info is good and all but the thing that matters the most is... How sharp is the blade after you sharpen on it?

And the answer is, it's RIDICULOUSLY SHARP.

It's so much sharper than what I was getting off of my 8k stone that I almost don't know how to describe it. It's by far the keenest edge I've ever put on a plane iron, by far. And if course the performance I get out of my planes is off the charts. 

The last thing to mention is that I also used it as the final Stone to flatten the back of the irons and it leaves a mirror finish. I know that a mirror finish doesn't really impact the sharpness but I liked the way it looks.

So in sum this is by far the best stone I've ever used and it's well worth the money in my opinion.

 

[Mark J]

I have the regular Shapton ceramic wet stones (not glass mounted) and I love that they only need a spray of water to use.  It makes it very hard to procrastinate on sharpeneing--I manage, but it's much harder.