SHAPTON 30,000 ON GLASS STONE
The Shapton 30,000 on Glass stone is one, if not the finest grit synthetic finishing stones available on the market today. I have found that in
general the synthetic stones tend to equally polish to a bright shiny finish both the soft jigane iron and the hard steel hagane. In the photos you
first notice the long wide scratches in the soft jigane, your eye is attracted to them because of their prominence. But if you follow those
scratches you see that they fade and become smaller and finer as they lead into the harder steel hagane and represent more like what you
would expect 30,000 grit composition to look like.
I truly do not fully understand why the Shapton and other synthetic stones tend to leave the jigane shiny, or why the natural stones tend to leave
the jigane dull with a hazy look. I can tell you however that it is difficult to photograph, almost like trying to photograph a mirror. Trying to
photograph the scratch pattern left from the Shapton 30K stone is just such a challenge. The wide, bright and highly reflective surface area
created by the hagane and jigane together affects how the camera reads and creates the light exposure. It is a little bit like pointing your
camera at a bright light or the sun. The camera will take a photo but it does not look like the sun.
When taking a photo of a Japanese kanna blade that has been sharpened with a natural Japanese water stone, the camera is provided with a
dull area and a shiny area to take light reading from. The automatic exposure meter in the camera will make a compromise that is based on a
gray scale reading. When a camera is pointed at a bright area it will stop down the exposure time, and when pointed at a dull object it will
extend the exposure time and therefore allow the camera to gather more light.
I did not purchase the Shapton 30,000 on glass stone in order to prove that it was a good or a bad product, I simply purchased it because it
was advertised as an example of a 30,000 grit abrasive and I needed the finest "known" grit product for my photographic comparisons. Still I
am not 100% sure that the scratches left by the Shapton are 30K scratches, or if the Shapton stone is a composition of 100% 30K particles, or
if it is a composition of some (known or unknown) amount of 30K particles along with an accepted amount of coarser particles mixed in with
the formula. If anyone knows this, please tell me.
general the synthetic stones tend to equally polish to a bright shiny finish both the soft jigane iron and the hard steel hagane. In the photos you
first notice the long wide scratches in the soft jigane, your eye is attracted to them because of their prominence. But if you follow those
scratches you see that they fade and become smaller and finer as they lead into the harder steel hagane and represent more like what you
would expect 30,000 grit composition to look like.
I truly do not fully understand why the Shapton and other synthetic stones tend to leave the jigane shiny, or why the natural stones tend to leave
the jigane dull with a hazy look. I can tell you however that it is difficult to photograph, almost like trying to photograph a mirror. Trying to
photograph the scratch pattern left from the Shapton 30K stone is just such a challenge. The wide, bright and highly reflective surface area
created by the hagane and jigane together affects how the camera reads and creates the light exposure. It is a little bit like pointing your
camera at a bright light or the sun. The camera will take a photo but it does not look like the sun.
When taking a photo of a Japanese kanna blade that has been sharpened with a natural Japanese water stone, the camera is provided with a
dull area and a shiny area to take light reading from. The automatic exposure meter in the camera will make a compromise that is based on a
gray scale reading. When a camera is pointed at a bright area it will stop down the exposure time, and when pointed at a dull object it will
extend the exposure time and therefore allow the camera to gather more light.
I did not purchase the Shapton 30,000 on glass stone in order to prove that it was a good or a bad product, I simply purchased it because it
was advertised as an example of a 30,000 grit abrasive and I needed the finest "known" grit product for my photographic comparisons. Still I
am not 100% sure that the scratches left by the Shapton are 30K scratches, or if the Shapton stone is a composition of 100% 30K particles, or
if it is a composition of some (known or unknown) amount of 30K particles along with an accepted amount of coarser particles mixed in with
the formula. If anyone knows this, please tell me.