# Closing in on new 2K stone



## TBS19106 (Jan 29, 2020)

I had just about decided on the Naniwa 2K Super Stone instead of the Naniwa 2K Professional, just to save a few bucks. It's my first 2K. But. . . . 

There is something about the "Green Brick of Joy" 2K Naniwa that calls out to me, I guess because it's eclectic. I get that it's soft, gets muddy, etc. But, joy is too scarce in the sharpening game, so if I can get it from a green brick, maybe I should go for it.

Curious for your thoughts.


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## Steampunk (Jan 29, 2020)

Some stones just gel with certain knives or tools... What are you trying to sharpen, and what sort of result are you looking to achieve with this stone? 

Super Stone's are well liked for razors, typically, but less so for knives as they're a bit slower and easier to gouge than some of the other options. 

2K's are nice in some progressions (The 500 or 600 to 2K jump is nice before hitting up a slower cutting 4-5K stone, or if you're into mirror-polishing the bevels on folders, hitting every grit helps.), and some people like the feel of stopping at 2K (Though the type of edge different stones leave varies a lot... Some actually start getting quite polished, while others leave a toothier edge feel.). However, it's typically not the most versatile grit, and if you're trying to save some money focusing that cash elsewhere might be better depending on what you're trying to do. 

- Steampunk


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## Qapla' (Jan 29, 2020)

Deleted.


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## daveb (Jan 29, 2020)

It would be tough to find a better, (more effective, fast, slow wearing,) splash and go 2K stone than the Shapton 2K that LoL has posted on bst. I have two of them and may have a 3rd before morning.


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## nakneker (Jan 29, 2020)

I’ve had several 2k stones over the last year. SP2k, Naniwa professional 2k, just tried the King Hyper 2k which acts a lot like the SP2k. The Green brick is a Stone I tried and sold a week later, I thought is was slow especially compared to the SP2k. The green brick has its fans but I’m not one of them.


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## Ivang (Jan 30, 2020)

Im a big fan of the shapton pro 2k, easily my most used stone


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## labor of love (Jan 30, 2020)

daveb said:


> I have two of them and may have a 3rd before morning.


What is wrong with you? Haha


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## M1k3 (Jan 30, 2020)

labor of love said:


> What is wrong with you? Haha



What's wrong with you? Never bought multiples of a knife?


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## rickbern (Jan 30, 2020)

labor of love said:


> What is wrong with you? Haha


I just bought one to leave at my girlfriends house. I could see if a guy had three girlfriends...

we’ll see in the morning!


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## Kitchen-Samurai (Jan 30, 2020)

The Shapton Pro 2K is a nice stone! Another really good stone in this grit range is the JKI Gesshin 2000. It feels a bit more gritty, is relatively hard, wears slowly, is super-fast (much faster than any other 2K I know of) and leaves an aggressive, less polished edge. You can think of it as a 1K replacement.


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## TBS19106 (Jan 30, 2020)

Steampunk said:


> What are you trying to sharpen, and what sort of result are you looking to achieve with this stone?
> 
> - Steampunk


Beside my wits about me, I sharpen mostly kitchen knives, about half Japanese, and then an eclectic batch of Europeans (Sabatier, Wusthof, etc.) I have a big 52100 FKK F4. Occasionally I get scissors, serrated, and pocket knives. I want the 2K to be the stop on Germans, and the final stepping stone to 5K for my higher Rockwell knives, and the 52100.

I currently have Shapton Pro in 120, 320, 1K, 5K. I like them all (though the 5K is harder to read). I thought it was time to branch out of the Shapton family, but hearing the praise of the Shapton Pro 2k, maybe I'll label my kit, "All in the Shapton Family."

Thanks for the good advice.


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## TBS19106 (Jan 30, 2020)

Kitchen-Samurai said:


> The Shapton Pro 2K is a nice stone! Another really good stone in this grit range is the JKI Gesshin 2000. It feels a bit more gritty, is relatively hard, wears slowly, is super-fast (much faster than any other 2K I know of) and leaves an aggressive, less polished edge. You can think of it as a 1K replacement.


At $135, the JKI Gesshin felt pricey.


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## KingShapton (Jan 30, 2020)

TBS19106 said:


> I thought it was time to branch out of the Shapton family, but hearing the praise of the Shapton Pro 2k, maybe I'll label my kit, "All in the Shapton Family."


Great idea! If you like the shaptons you have now, you will love the Shapton Pro 2000.

I have the Shapton Pro up to 12000 and the 2000 is the best stone in the series. And it is a super finisher for knives like Wüsthof and such.

The Green Brick is also very good, but from my own experience I recommend you stay with Shapton.


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## Kitchen-Samurai (Jan 30, 2020)

TBS19106 said:


> At $135, the JKI Gesshin felt pricey.



The Gesshin 2000 ist $95, not $135. It still is not the cheapest stone, though.
If you want it to be your finisher for stainless, and rather inexpensive, I‘d recommend the Shapton Pro 2K!


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## Kitchen-Samurai (Jan 30, 2020)

Personally, I‘d also be curious about the King Hyper 2k...


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## Carl Kotte (Jan 30, 2020)

I recently bought the king hyper 2k and I like it a lot. It feels fairly hard but releases a lot of mud. It seems to work well as a kasumi stone (if that is something one is after) when soaked for a long time. The feedback is good and the stone cuts relatively fast. I also like the edge I can get from it. [emoji1303]


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## nakneker (Jan 30, 2020)

Kitchen-Samurai said:


> Personally, I‘d also be curious about the King Hyper 2k...


 I just bought that stone, I really liked it. As mentioned above it requires a good 15 minutes of soak time, it performed so much like the SP2K I ended up selling it. Good mud, fast cutting, slow to load stone.


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## Foltest (Jan 30, 2020)

Depends what do you want to do with it. For actual sharpening (for european knives and such sort, things with narrow surface) I would take shapton pr0 2k, simply because of hardness. For everything else i like the king hyper 2k more, better surface finish and superior feedback.


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## SeattleBen (Jan 30, 2020)

I'll throw in for the gesshin 2k as well. I've been nothing but happy with it.


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## kayman67 (Jan 30, 2020)

Naniwa Pro 2k is highly prone to some cracking in its life. Will polish most alloys beyond the rated 2k.

If you want a bit of Green brick of joy, but harder and faster, you could always try the Naniwa Traditional 2k. Turns out quite a few people I know sold the Shapton Pro 2k after trying this, purely for traditional Japanese carbon knives. I like them both, but even I sold the SP 2k for the 1.5k version not so long ago. I still have the Glass 2k, beautiful stone, that seemed to perform just a bit better than SP 2k in most test I did.

Anyway, if I were you, having that 1k, I would get a 3k stone, Glass 3k maybe.


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## Dave Martell (Jan 30, 2020)

2k stones are oddballs to me. I've used many, loved some and hated others, but none of them stayed with me over time. I seem to prefer a 1k(ish) to 5k(ish) jump. 

BTW, that "green brick of joy" brought me nothing but tears. For Japanese knives (IMO) it's worthless. Lots of people like it for a stopping point for Euro stainless knives, I never tried it like that so I can't say.


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## vicv (Jan 31, 2020)

I'll agree with Dave here. I have that stone. Sometimes I'll bring it out just so it's not wasted sitting there on the shelf but I do feel it was the worst $110 I've ever spent. It leaves a comically shiny finish because it's burnishing instead of cutting. But not a smooth even finish. It's useless for polishing the the secondary edge/bevel. For edges.......eh it's ok but I prefer the edge off my king 1K if that tells you anything. On either hard J knives or soft westerns. 
Things I like about it.... the size it just looks awesome. The mud dried on copy paper is an excellent stropping compound.
It's so soft and chalky that it teaches great technique as any loss in angle control either gouges into the stone or gives a totally dead feeling.
All in all though I feel money can much better be spent elsewhere.


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## labor of love (Jan 31, 2020)

Yes, we talked about the green brick of joy in a thread many years ago. Lots of guys came to the conclusion it was quite good for beater stainless (dexter) and other softer steels.
I’m surprised it retails for $110 these days, I think mine was no more than $50 several years back.


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## kayman67 (Jan 31, 2020)

Should be 65 last I checked. 110 USD? Hm.

LE. Looks like it did go up, it's 75 now.


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## vicv (Jan 31, 2020)

I'm in Canada. Plus shipping. What I paid total at knife wear


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## labor of love (Jan 31, 2020)

Dave Martell said:


> 2k stones are oddballs to me. I've used many, loved some and hated others, but none of them stayed with me over time. I seem to prefer a 1k(ish) to 5k(ish) jump.



same here. 1k to 4-6k jump, just feels right to me. I’ve also tried multiple 2ks some good some not so much.


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## vicv (Jan 31, 2020)

I like a 300 to 3000 jump. Seems proper somehow. Maybe I like the number 3


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## kayman67 (Jan 31, 2020)

labor of love said:


> same here. 1k to 4-6k jump, just feels right to me. I’ve also tried multiple 2ks some good some not so much.



Grits are complicated. Shapton Pro 1k tends to perform coarser, like Chosera 800 or sometimes being more like my Naniwa Pro 600. Now imagine me jumping from 600 to... "600". I've made a lot of bevels with that Naniwa stone. 
Shapton Pro 2k is just a bit finer than Chosera 1k, something some people appreciate for razors, but interchange them quite often.
This is just one thing. Like I was saying with Shapton Glass 220, usually is not great, but give it the right steel, kaboom on performance. Problem is, most people don't really have the right steel. And other aspects play a role as well. Or the right technique. Or this. Or that. It's the reason why there's a good thing so many stones are available and also why some people find good use for some "strange" grits.
Lately I've been playing with 220-1000-5000 set. Works, but does take some time with the 1k on some knives.


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## labor of love (Jan 31, 2020)

No doubt shapton pro 1k and some others aren’t exactly 1k. Same as some 2k stones. There’s enough distance between 1k and 2k branded stones so I consider them in different ball parks.
And I know which ball park I prefer.


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## daveb (Jan 31, 2020)

For me the Shapton 1000 and 2000 work very well together and is my choice for anything German, beaters, house knives, etc. And not above using them on my "good" stuff if I need a quick and dirty. I think I have 3 pair.


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## bahamaroot (Jan 31, 2020)

nakneker said:


> I’ve had several 2k stones over the last year. SP2k, Naniwa professional 2k, just tried the King Hyper 2k which acts a lot like the SP2k. The Green brick is a Stone I tried and sold a week later, I thought is was slow especially compared to the SP2k. *The green brick has its fans but I’m not one of them.*


I've bought the Green Brick twice and sold it twice. I bought it the first time as a newbe because of its hype but liked my SP2k better and sold it.
Second time I bought because I kept hearing how great it was and I thought maybe being much more "experienced" now I might get what everyone was talking about. Still thought it sucked for EVERYTHING and sold it again. Some like it, but I'm with Sean, the SP2k and others are just much better.
Had a Naniwa 2K Super Stone also, to soft and slow for knives for me. SP Pro and Naniwa Pro are both better stones for knives.


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## inferno (Jan 31, 2020)

i have 3 different 2k stones. glass, pro, naniwa pro.

i think they are about equal in speed more or less. they do all steels.
the naniwa is slightly better for suction. that is it doesn't suck the blade to the stones when doing full flat ground blades as much as the other 2.
maybe the glass is fastest. all are top quality stones. and imo in a very usable grit.

when doing flattenings of blade sides and bevels and such it comes very handy after a 1k. it saves time doing this before going to higher grits like 4-6-8k or similar. a 2k is a twice as fine as a 1k. but it only takes a minute to get 2k scratches after the 1k. and this is kinda the last grit where you actually remove material.
a 4k after a 1k is crap. because its so slow. on edges it don't really matter though. contact area is so small anyway. just push harder.

1k though, i question the usability of that grit if you have a a lot of stones. too slow for material removal, too coarse for edges, too slow for chips, too ****** finish.
only thing i can think of is as an intermediate between a coarse stone like 220-500 and a 2-3k when polishing. and i have had 10 different 1k stones. still have 4-5 or so.

2k is also a good stopping point for globals and other under 60hrc SS. if you never get major chips a shapton pro 2k could be your only stone. if i was forced to only have 1 stone this would be it.
its only marginally slower than the naniwa pro 1k. but creates a much better edge. this is where sharp actually begins. at this grit its mostly up to the user to get stuff as sharp as they want. its dependent on the skill. you can create a quite ****** saw or something close to "razor sharpness" if you know what youre doing.

2k is a good grit. better than 1k.


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## KingShapton (Feb 1, 2020)

daveb said:


> I think I have 3 pair.


You are better than me, I only have 2 pairs. But I also have the Glass Stones in 1000 and 2000


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