I bought a set of 1500, 5000 and 8000 grit Shapton stones (Professional
grade) from someone in this forum. They arrived yesterday and this morning I
have some black stuff still hanging around the edges of my fingernails and a
bit less hair on my left forearm.

So, before I forget I thought I'd post a brief review. My background with
waterstones is fairly eclectic. I've been using a mix of natural and manmade
stones (the natural ones were picked up years ago and I have no idea of
where they came from originally or what "grit" they would approximate. The
manmade one is a big 200 grit stone I bought to grind some old plane blades
into shape. I also gave the scary sharp system a brief try with whatever
sandpaper I had in the garage. Nothing finer than 400 grit though, I then
finished the sharpening off on my fine waterstone. I am hardly an edge
fetishist. I do like to have sharp tools but I don't care if anything back
from the cutting edge is polished or rusty.

It had been occuring to me that I have been lacking a middle grade stone and
just before these stones were posted here I had nearly made up my mind to
bite the bullet and pick up one of the shapton stones to see how they
worked. So when I saw them for sale nearly unused I threw caution and cash
to the wind and picked up all three.

The previous owner stated that he didn't have time (or was it patience) for
them. After using the 1500 grit stone to flatten the back and take out a
slight hump in the top of a japanese carving knife I have, it occured to me
why he might have given up. The 1500 stone is just a bit too fine for this
sort of work. I spent more time than I would have liked on this task. Then I
pulled out a plane blade from a Steve Knight coffin smoother that I had
dinged up planing some redwood that I too late realized had a couple of
pieces of sand embedded in the surface (Note to self: don't store wood on
floor of the garage...). It worked great honing the back and actually didn't
take all that long to bring the bevel back to eliminate the small nick. But
I think for general purpose one would be better off with a 1000 grit
instead.

At this time I washed it off and put it back in the box. Nice to have boxes,
and nice that I didn't need to soak them in water before hand. This makes it
easy to just pull them out and go to work, something I couldn't do with my
other stones. Apparently you can sharpen with the stone sitting in the box,
but I found it didn't sit quite as flat as I would like so I took it out and
set it on a wet paper towel on the counter. Better.

The time I spent on the 5000 grit stone was maybe a 10th of the time on the
1500 stone. It didn't take long to put a nice shine on things. Here is where
taking the time with the coarser stone pays off. Still I found there were
some areas I was too impatient with the 1500 stone. I figured I'd catch
areas which are far away from the edge the next time and it looks like I
will have to. I think you could stop with the 5000 grit. It really was a
nice shiny finish.

But I went on. I pulled out the 8000 grit and spent a few minutes with it.
My intention with it was to just give the back a final polish and put a
microbevel on bevel side. It did this quickly and the hair started falling
off my arm. Probably the sharpest that knife has ever been and the plane
blade was sharp as new. I'm quite impressed with the speed they cut and the
finish they give. My only regret is that 1500 grit stone. Now I think I need
to buy a 320 or something to round out the set.

As part of the deal I also bought that fellow's sharpening jigs. One a
japanese one whose name I can't remember and the other a veritas. I was not
impressed. The veritas didn't grip the blade well enough (or maybe I didn't
crank down on the knob hard enough) and was hard to adjust for the precise
blade angle. Also, with the roller in the back you only use half the stone.
I am thinking that will lead to a greater degree of uneven wear. I found it
easier and faster to simply do it by hand. Both of the blades I sharpened
have fairly long bevels so it is not so difficult. A thin stanley plane
blade may be a different story.

Anyway, I can only say that the performance of the stones is exemplary. When
you add the convenience of not having to soak and the added touch of having
nice drip-dry storage boxes there really is no excuse other than lack of
money not to consider them. I'd rate the experience as better than scary
sharp because the stones are just there, ready to use. No gluing or sticking
down sandpaper and replacing it. They cut just as well when you start as
when you stop. If it were not time to get to bed I would have been hunting
around looking for more things to sharpen.

My experience with scary sharp also seemed prone to producing somewhat
rounded edges. I'd like to avoid that. With a hard stone this is less likely
to occur as there is no flex to it as there may be with paper and adhesive.
Poor technique can always produce the same effect though....

Anyway, thanks to the seller of the stones and to Steve Knight for bringing
them to my attention.

-j