# Chosera 400 vs Shapton glass 500



## jeness (Jun 11, 2012)

Hi all!

I am not new on this forum, I have been a frequent reader for about 2 years now, but I have run into a stone buying problem, and I hope the more experieced members can give me some advice 

The majority of stuff I sharpen are straight razors, but lately I have bought some nice japanese knives, and I need some coarser stones for some of my custom knife experiments too 

My current setup for knives in fair condition and straights is: 400 Atoma, 1k Chosera, 5k Chosera, 8k Snow white, 10k SS, and a razor sized Nakayama. Because I am doing more and more heavy steel lifting on knives, I would like to buy something that feels better than the Atoma, so I can retire it to be a full time flattener, I have been told it last much longer this way. 

After reading a lot of posts, and looking around on websites where I can order some stones to Europe, I have chosen two stones, but I can't really decide between them, the Chosera 400, and Shapton GS 500. I was considering the Bester 500 and 700 too, but I don't like long soakers, so they were ruled out. The Gesshin 400 looks like a good stone too, but 75$ and about 30$ shipping isn't funny, so thats ruled out too. 

The Chosera would run me about 75-80$ with shipping, the Shapton about 55$. Which one would you recommend? I am leaning towards the Shapton, mainly because it is slapsh-and-go, and should be fast, but I haven't found too much info about it really.

The thickness isn't that big of an issue, because I won't use it up too soon, so I am mainly concerned with: *speed*, *clogging*, and *feel*.

Thank you very much in advance for your help!


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## NO ChoP! (Jun 11, 2012)

I think the Shapton is good to go in terms of speed.
I do feel they tend to clog easily.
As far as feel, this is the huge trade off for it being splash and go...Shaptons feel terrible imo, especially compared to choseras, suehira, and the besters....but I still use them purely for convenience...


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## Schtoo (Jun 11, 2012)

The Shapton is faster, feeling isn't great but tolerable and yes, as NO Chop mentioned, can clog. It also dishes a little more than I'm fond of and there's not much of it and it seems to me like it'll wear out pretty quickly. 

The Chosera is smooth, isn't that fast (not really, sorry if that bursts someone's bubble) and doesn't clog much as far as I can remember.

Honestly, I don't use either of these much any more. The Shapton was never a user, the Chosera got superseded 3 stones ago and won't be a 'user' again because I got frustrated with it's lack of speed and it never stayed flat enough. Plus the sticky green mud? Blech. 

I'd tell you to look at fine-tools.com since you're in Europe and consider the Cerax #320, but I just checked and they don't have it listed for sale. The Cerax is a soaker, it's fast, almost clog proof and feels decent to me. 

Dictum (google them) have an oddball looking one that's normal thickness in the very cool Suehiro integral base/case and is 36 Euro plus shipping.

Coarse stones are a bit of a 'thing'. It's been difficult to find a good one (although the Beston is often suggested, I still can't find one here after a couple dozen knife and tool stores in 6 different cities here in Japan) but now there are several good choices, many of them few folks have ever considered. 


Stu.


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## Dave Martell (Jun 11, 2012)

Dang, this is like voting for the president of the USA - two crappy choices so we just pick which one sucks less. 

My take is that the Chosera is a faster cutter for wide bevels and the Shapton is faster for narrow bevels. They both wear kind of fast but the Chosera is too fast. The Shapton GS 500x is one of my most disliked stones ever while the Chosera I've worn through a few because of single bevel work but I hate the Chosera 400x for gyutos, etc. Again, what a bad choice to have to make.


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## jeness (Jun 11, 2012)

Dave Martell said:


> Dang, this is like voting for the president of the USA - two crappy choices so we just pick which one sucks less.
> 
> My take is that the Chosera is a faster cutter for wide bevels and the Shapton is faster for narrow bevels. They both wear kind of fast but the Chosera is too fast. The Shapton GS 500x is one of my most disliked stones ever while the Chosera I've worn through a few because of single bevel work but I hate the Chosera 400x for gyutos, etc. Again, what a bad choice to have to make.



I was afraid that I will be getting these kind of answers, no surprise I couldn't choose reading other threads :laugh:

What stones would qualify as good choices? Maybe I can find them for a reasonable price. The only good ones are soakers, or much more expensive?


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## jgraeff (Jun 11, 2012)

Not sure about stones listed but I can vouch for gesshin 400, good feeling stone, doesn't dish very much if at all if you flatten periodically. 

Cuts all types of steel very good I know u said its out of your budget but if u can't find anymore I'd recommend it


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## Birnando (Jun 11, 2012)

Well, I for one do enjoy the Chosera 400.
I've used it for a long time on my razors, and find it equally good to use on my kitchen knives.


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## jeness (Jun 12, 2012)

Looked around, some stones I could buy for reasonable prices:

The 320 grit Suehiro Cerax 50mm thick for ~76$, Sigma power 400 for ~72$, the Bester 500 would be about 80$ from JNS.


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