Hello all,
New member here, long time lurker. Lots of great information here and I’ve been reading it for years and decided to finally sign up.
Hoping someone can help with this new stone. I do a lot of eBay find restorations and I got tired of setting bevels on my Shapton pro 1000, or really my wife got sick of how much time I was spending in my shave den lol. So I decided to invest in a better coarse stone. I had a cheap 400/1000 but it was slow cutting and fast to dish. So I spend a lot of time researching 300 to 400 grit stones. Thought about the Shapton pto 320, the SG 320 and 500, Chosera 400 and 600 Cerax 320 etc and ultimately decided on the king 300 deluxe. It was supposed to be nothing like the other king stones. And I would agree with that. It’s hard, slow to dish, medium to fast cutting, and it’s basically a splash and go, abit thirsty though.
I was very pleased with it at first, was able to set a bevel in about 20 mins. These are 100 year old eBay razors with no bevel left at all. Usually takes me a few hours. Then I noticed it wasn’t quite as coarse as it once was and it was cutting slower then my SP1000. Mind you I’ve only had the stone for a week. I swear it’s finer and smoother then my SP2000. Almost like it’s burnished/glasses/smoothed over.
So I thought maybe I needed to lap/refresh the surface, even though there seems or better no metal build up or anything. Got some 220 grit wet/dry and got it nice and flat, but still smooth as baby. Then I tried my sic lapping plate, and after this it might have been a little bit better, but not much. I read about people refreshing the stone with loose 60 grit sic powder, but I don’t have any of that so I tried some 60 grit W/d, and same result.
It’s almost like the stone and binder is so hard it’s not releasing any new grit, and the existing grit has been worn down. As you all know, we don’t use a ton of pressure with straights and they are kind of fragile. So I thought maybe that was the problem. It’s the guys on the woodworking forum who really praise this stone so I got out one of my chisels and flattened the back of it, putting a lot more pressure thinking maybe it would release new grit, but still nothing. And the scratch pattern on the chisel is no 300 grit pattern, more like a 2000.
So does anyone have any advice? I have had many synthetic water stones over the years and never ever had this problem. I’m starting to really regret not just buying the Shapton pro 320 or the glass 320 or 500. This stone started out great, and the other side is still coarse like it should be. I really want to love this stone. It’s a straight brick. Probably 3 times as thick as my shapton pros, and just as wide and long. It would last for years of low grit grunt work. But It’s no good like this. I still have time to return it and buy a SP320 or SG320 or 500.
Sorry for writing a novel. And thanks in advance for any help y’all can provide.
New member here, long time lurker. Lots of great information here and I’ve been reading it for years and decided to finally sign up.
Hoping someone can help with this new stone. I do a lot of eBay find restorations and I got tired of setting bevels on my Shapton pro 1000, or really my wife got sick of how much time I was spending in my shave den lol. So I decided to invest in a better coarse stone. I had a cheap 400/1000 but it was slow cutting and fast to dish. So I spend a lot of time researching 300 to 400 grit stones. Thought about the Shapton pto 320, the SG 320 and 500, Chosera 400 and 600 Cerax 320 etc and ultimately decided on the king 300 deluxe. It was supposed to be nothing like the other king stones. And I would agree with that. It’s hard, slow to dish, medium to fast cutting, and it’s basically a splash and go, abit thirsty though.
I was very pleased with it at first, was able to set a bevel in about 20 mins. These are 100 year old eBay razors with no bevel left at all. Usually takes me a few hours. Then I noticed it wasn’t quite as coarse as it once was and it was cutting slower then my SP1000. Mind you I’ve only had the stone for a week. I swear it’s finer and smoother then my SP2000. Almost like it’s burnished/glasses/smoothed over.
So I thought maybe I needed to lap/refresh the surface, even though there seems or better no metal build up or anything. Got some 220 grit wet/dry and got it nice and flat, but still smooth as baby. Then I tried my sic lapping plate, and after this it might have been a little bit better, but not much. I read about people refreshing the stone with loose 60 grit sic powder, but I don’t have any of that so I tried some 60 grit W/d, and same result.
It’s almost like the stone and binder is so hard it’s not releasing any new grit, and the existing grit has been worn down. As you all know, we don’t use a ton of pressure with straights and they are kind of fragile. So I thought maybe that was the problem. It’s the guys on the woodworking forum who really praise this stone so I got out one of my chisels and flattened the back of it, putting a lot more pressure thinking maybe it would release new grit, but still nothing. And the scratch pattern on the chisel is no 300 grit pattern, more like a 2000.
So does anyone have any advice? I have had many synthetic water stones over the years and never ever had this problem. I’m starting to really regret not just buying the Shapton pro 320 or the glass 320 or 500. This stone started out great, and the other side is still coarse like it should be. I really want to love this stone. It’s a straight brick. Probably 3 times as thick as my shapton pros, and just as wide and long. It would last for years of low grit grunt work. But It’s no good like this. I still have time to return it and buy a SP320 or SG320 or 500.
Sorry for writing a novel. And thanks in advance for any help y’all can provide.