I need a new coarse stone. Help me select one

T

Teton

Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
25
I have a Shapton 120 GS. Not real fond of it. But it does its job.

150-220 range is what I'm after, taking my norton 220 to work to leave there and need a replacement for it.

These are the ones I'm contemplating. Stone experts, please recommend one if it's not here on the short list.

Nubatama Bamboo 150, 180, 220, really leaning towards the 150......
Nubatama Ume 180, 220
Naniwa Omura 150
Imanishi Pink Brick 220
Bester 220, (not brick sized) Looks to be a new offering on cktg

I tend to like the larger stones better, so I'd like to find one of those.

I still am working on my pressure and I tend to use too much still. Looking for a stone that will not dish alot, that probably rules out the Omura 150??

Thank you.

Rick
 
I push harder, move faster, and sharpen waaaaay more than most people thus I dish a stone and wear them out really fast. I have also used or tested more than half the stones you have listed.

(Please note: I professionally sharpen and have high demands for my stones, what does or does not work for me may work for you)

Nubatama Bamboo 180: I have used this stone the most, so much so its only about 40% of its original size. It is a smooth cutting stone that is fast but not as fast as one might expect for a 180 stone. Good a making crisp bevel lines and gives a easy transition to higher grits. I like it but will not be buying it again.

Bamboo 150: this is a much loved stone by many because it is slow to wear yet cuts steel quickly. It's more aggressive and slower wearing than the bamboo 180 but this can be a issue in some cases where you need to sharpen a large blade road like found on a yanagi. For most cutlery this stone would be a ideal choice.

Bamboo 220 pink brick: This is my favorite, works well with all blade types and cuts like a demon. You simply will not believe this is a 220 grit stone. It can wear fast with single bevels and can produce minor scratching above the bevel on standard cutlery though the wear is much less than a king and the scratching is something you can work around as you get to understand how the stone works. So far its been the most well rounded stone with only minor dislikes.

I'll add more after dinner...
 
Nubatama Ume 220: very hard and slow wearing stone, cuts at a good rate but noticeable slower than the previously mentioned stones. If you do not want to hog off steel quickly and need a long lasting coarse stone for minor repair and bevel setting then this is the stone. It will still remove metal fast but loses speed due to lower abrasive release.

Naniwa Omura 150: This is my old stand by, really shines with carbon steel, single bevel knives, and German steel. Very muddy stone but slow to dish and easy to flatten unlike the Nubatama stones that will basically need a diamond plate. While trying to flatten a Nubatama 150 with a Naniwa flattening stone the red brick was turning gray :eek: Yes, the 150 was grinding down the flattening stone. Back to Omura facts, one thing about this stone that can be tricky is the use of too much water while sharpening will slow it down. Letting the surface run dry and allowing a thick mud to form will make it cut very fast, on a good day about as fast as a bamboo 180. It will do ok with stainless steels but will be noticeably slower.

The rest of them don't interest me much and I have not used them so I cannot provide any info on them.
 
Thank you for your insight Jason. Much appreciated.

Any you might recommend that are not listed?

Most of the stuff I'm tackling at present is my relatives thrown in a drawer with the rest of the utensils hammered kitchen knives. Once they heard i'd taken up knife sharpening I got boxes of knives to go through, and none of them are high quality. Still leaning towards that Bamboo 150. I need to fix tons of chips and alot of the carbide pull through, ripping the blade apart, type sharpeners that they've used.

Decisions, Decisions....... :D
 
The 150 bamboo would be a good choice, it will easily grind out all that neglect and is slower wearing plus a big brick so it will give you lots of useful life.
 
If you desire to remove a great deal of material quickly, look at the Atoma 140 diamond plate. (Or the DMT XC) Never needs flattening
 
Yes, ATOMA, fast, light weight strokes do more work, at least for me.
 
If I have to go real low grit I will most times do a progression - DMT XXC -> Nubatama Bamboo 150 -> Shapton Pro 220 -> Latte 400. Might skip one or use s different one than listed depending on the situation but that mostly works for me. Then I'll go to 1000 on up.

If I ever wear out my DMT or if I just end up with an extra $100 one day I'll get an Atoma 140 plate to take it's place for sure.
 
Last edited:
The Omura is a pretty good stone for the money. Takes a bit to get the surface down so it works well. Best used muddy for sure. I have a Bamboo 150 on the way. I'll see how it compares.
 
Teton said:
I have a Shapton 120 GS. Not real fond of it. But it does its job.
Rick
Click to expand...

Would you mind sharing why you're not fond of it??

I have Shapton glass in 500 and 1000, and I was considering adding a 220 and 8000.

However, since I would only use a stone that coarse for re-bevelling, or removing scratches from diamonds, if something like a Nubatama 150 would work better, I may reconsider the 220 Glass. Thanks,

Ben
 
I bought the Nubatama bamboo 150 a few weeks ago and have used it on a handful of knives. The first big reprofile I did was on a big Benchmade 156 in D2 steel. On that blade, the stone made little mud, and at first I didn't know any better and rinsed it away. When I say "mud" I should really say "muddy grit". After asking at the chef knives to go forums, I was told to leave it and it would cut faster *and* stay wet longer. They were right.

That D2 blade was a bear to work on, but I got it done after literally several hours on the 150. It made some grit/mud and cut ok. I guess D2 is very abrasion resistant. I would have expected the DMT XXC to cut faster, but I did not try it, so maybe I would have been surprised on that blade with the DMT also.

The next big-ish job I did was on a no name stainless kitchen knife. Last night in fact. This time it cut much faster, which is to be expected. What surprised me though, was it made more mud. LOTS more mud! In fact it made enough mud that it kind of lubricated the surface a bit and encouraged me to do faster longer strokes on the stone. I actually liked the feel much better than before the mud. I liked the feel better than the small amount of mud it made with the D2 steel. It really was a remarkable difference in feel.

I wonder why it was so different though? Break in? Steel type? Oh I just thought of something: Prior to this, I had the stone soaking for about 5 days straight. Previously I'd soak it for 10 to 20 minutes, way after all the bubbles stopped. Could this multi-day soak have something to do with mud production?

So overall I like this stone, though honestly I was expecting it to cut faster. Knifenut (Jason) said he thought a good waterstone cut considerably faster than the DMT XXC. This stone seems close to the XXC, but slower. I haven't A/B tested it, but that's my general impression.

Not sure if this helps much, but that's my experience with the 150 thus far.

Brian.
 
Ben Dover said:
Would you mind sharing why you're not fond of it??

I have Shapton glass in 500 and 1000, and I was considering adding a 220 and 8000.

However, since I would only use a stone that coarse for re-bevelling, or removing scratches from diamonds, if something like a Nubatama 150 would work better, I may reconsider the 220 Glass. Thanks,

Ben
Click to expand...
+1 My current waterstone set up consists of only shapton glass stones. And I have been considering a 120 or 220 glass. I'm curious as well.
 
Does it have to be a water stone? If not you might want to try an extra coarse DMT diamond hone.
 
bgentry said:
I bought the Nubatama bamboo 150 a few weeks ago and have used it on a handful of knives. The first big reprofile I did was on a big Benchmade 156 in D2 steel. On that blade, the stone made little mud, and at first I didn't know any better and rinsed it away. When I say "mud" I should really say "muddy grit". After asking at the chef knives to go forums, I was told to leave it and it would cut faster *and* stay wet longer. They were right.

That D2 blade was a bear to work on, but I got it done after literally several hours on the 150. It made some grit/mud and cut ok. I guess D2 is very abrasion resistant. I would have expected the DMT XXC to cut faster, but I did not try it, so maybe I would have been surprised on that blade with the DMT also.

The next big-ish job I did was on a no name stainless kitchen knife. Last night in fact. This time it cut much faster, which is to be expected. What surprised me though, was it made more mud. LOTS more mud! In fact it made enough mud that it kind of lubricated the surface a bit and encouraged me to do faster longer strokes on the stone. I actually liked the feel much better than before the mud. I liked the feel better than the small amount of mud it made with the D2 steel. It really was a remarkable difference in feel.

I wonder why it was so different though? Break in? Steel type? Oh I just thought of something: Prior to this, I had the stone soaking for about 5 days straight. Previously I'd soak it for 10 to 20 minutes, way after all the bubbles stopped. Could this multi-day soak have something to do with mud production?

So overall I like this stone, though honestly I was expecting it to cut faster. Knifenut (Jason) said he thought a good waterstone cut considerably faster than the DMT XXC. This stone seems close to the XXC, but slower. I haven't A/B tested it, but that's my general impression.

Not sure if this helps much, but that's my experience with the 150 thus far.

Brian.
Click to expand...
I would think that the D2 blade being more wear resistant/harder would abrade the stone faster and produce more mud but you had the opposite experience which leads me to believe that it was the longer soak which caused more mud. I could be wrong but that just seems to make the most sense
 
Actually the softer the steel the more muddy a waterstone will become.
 
Ben Dover said:
Would you mind sharing why you're not fond of it??

I have Shapton glass in 500 and 1000, and I was considering adding a 220 and 8000.

However, since I would only use a stone that coarse for re-bevelling, or removing scratches from diamonds, if something like a Nubatama 150 would work better, I may reconsider the 220 Glass. Thanks,

Ben
Click to expand...

It didn't have the feel i like. I did use it last weekend for a monster bone breaker i got from a butcher that had a yard sale Sunday afternoon. 12.5" blade, 2+ inches tall with a sweeping 90* curve at the tip. It looks like a small machete. Nella is the brand, and "omcron-F" in etched into the steel. SOmebody used it for a hammer. The edge was horribly gouged, chipped and nicked the entire edge length. I did use the shapton and my 320 diamind plate on this baby. Maybe the Shapton was still breaking in, but it feels much better now after some abuse from the Nella. Missed out on two nice Japanese knife sets he said let go for real cheap.

6-7 hours later and it's now ready for the GBOJ. :)

Nubatama 150 is being ordered next week, and the Atoma 140 is coming the paycheck after.
 
I've got a DMT 220 8x3" plate, the feedback on that is horrible, and the randomness of the diamonds is disappointing. More are in the center they get less and less as you reach the outer areas of the plate. I use it solely for stone flattening. Hoping the Atoma 140 has a better feel due to the consistant matrix of the diamonds on it.
 
bgentry said:
I bought the Nubatama bamboo 150 a few weeks ago and have used it on a handful of knives. The first big reprofile I did was on a big Benchmade 156 in D2 steel. On that blade, the stone made little mud, and at first I didn't know any better and rinsed it away. When I say "mud" I should really say "muddy grit". After asking at the chef knives to go forums, I was told to leave it and it would cut faster *and* stay wet longer. They were right.

That D2 blade was a bear to work on, but I got it done after literally several hours on the 150. It made some grit/mud and cut ok. I guess D2 is very abrasion resistant. I would have expected the DMT XXC to cut faster, but I did not try it, so maybe I would have been surprised on that blade with the DMT also.

The next big-ish job I did was on a no name stainless kitchen knife. Last night in fact. This time it cut much faster, which is to be expected. What surprised me though, was it made more mud. LOTS more mud! In fact it made enough mud that it kind of lubricated the surface a bit and encouraged me to do faster longer strokes on the stone. I actually liked the feel much better than before the mud. I liked the feel better than the small amount of mud it made with the D2 steel. It really was a remarkable difference in feel.

I wonder why it was so different though? Break in? Steel type? Oh I just thought of something: Prior to this, I had the stone soaking for about 5 days straight. Previously I'd soak it for 10 to 20 minutes, way after all the bubbles stopped. Could this multi-day soak have something to do with mud production?

So overall I like this stone, though honestly I was expecting it to cut faster. Knifenut (Jason) said he thought a good waterstone cut considerably faster than the DMT XXC. This stone seems close to the XXC, but slower. I haven't A/B tested it, but that's my general impression.

Not sure if this helps much, but that's my experience with the 150 thus far.

Brian.
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian. Hoping to have one in a week or so. :)
 
knifenut1013 said:
Actually the softer the steel the more muddy a waterstone will become.
Click to expand...

Confirmed. I've now done a good amount of work on no name Chinese cleaver that says "Stainless" and "2" on it. It was blunt as a butter knife with terrible inconsistent bevels. I'm not done with it, but I ground off a bunch of steel last night. It made TONS of mud. ...and this time I only soaked the 150 for 8 or 10 minutes. So it's definitely the steel type and perhaps some break in too. But probably just the steel type.

Brian.
 
Perma soak the 150 and basically all Nubatama stones. Only the 4k and 6k Ume should not be soaked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top