Shapton glass stone choices

[.Keens]

I am going to purchase a few shapton glass HR stones, as I am moving completely to hand sharpening. I own mostly new generation stainless blades, with some carbon steel blades as well, so I feel this product line is best for me. I plan on getting a set of 3, 4 if necessary. I already have course DMT stones for re-profiling. I would like some suggestions on grits to buy. I am leaning toward 500, 2k and 6k.

I am open to all advice, so let me know what you guys think.

 

[Jason B.]

The 500 and 2k are recommended by Shapton and likely for good reason. Going to the 6k will work with most things but you should be going to the 4k. If you try and go more than 2x the grit of the last stone used you can run into the problem of the finer grit stone not removing the coarser scratches on high hardness or high wear resistance steel.

For efficient sharpening and as a example you would go 500, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k