Best bevel setter

[rickboone1]

Get the DMT 325 for lapping your stones. And, plus is, it's good to have for nasty razors off ebay and such.

Is there a BEST bevel setter? ha ha... Yep, and there's a BEST finishing stone, too. It's JNats. I mean Coticules. I mean Charnley Forest. I mean Thurri, no wait...vintage Thurry....no no...blue/ green with oil and the moon full.

So, pardon my sarcasm. My point is this. This week, Chosera is the stone of choice. It's a great stone. It's popular, it does the job. It's $100. Well, just under, perhaps. Find SOMETHING to set bevels. Learn it. Use it. Love it. You could get wet/ dry sandpaper and a flat plate (granite or something) to set bevels and be just fine.

Bevel setters;

Shapton Pro 1k and 1.5k.
Cretan natural hone
Chosera 1K
Naniwa 1k (yes, different. this ones is around $40)
King 1k or 800 grit
DMT 1200 (if you can handle the feel and sound of scraping metal against metal)
Norton 1k (meh...)
JNS 1k
(said to be same as JNS...not going to open that can of worms.... ) Nubatama Ume

....don't get that one you linked to. You won't like it. You want a smooth surface.

[Gamma]

Don't forget Shapton Pro 1k and 1.5k.

:0)

[rickboone1]

Don't forget Shapton Pro 1k and 1.5k.

:0)

pffttt as if. like i'd forget those. get your glasses on, will ya?

[jeness]

IMO a best bevel setter is much easier to choose than a finisher. Using a finisher to its maximum potential is heavily experience and skill dependent, and you have to test the final edge on your particular face, with your beard, and your preferences. The bevel setter is the most basic stone in ones arsenal, its sole purpose is to remove the most metal in the least amount of time, with as shallow scrathes as possible. These are very objective attributes, while the shaving feeling off a stone is very subjective. Everyone agrees that a 1k Chosera is faster and overall better than a 1k King, this can't be said about the C12k and a coti, or an Escher and a Jnat.

[raccoonandbrush]

Naniwa Chosera 1K all the way!

[Slash McCoy]

Bigger is better. I wouldn't go smaller than 3" x 8". 2-3/4" wide absolute minimum. It will be much easier to stay precise and consistent when you aren't so reliant on x-stroking. Most of the available choices in larger stones will work fine for you. 12u film (approximately 1200 ANSI grit, I believe) is excellent but I prefer, if there is a lot of steel to be removed, to start out with wet/dry sandpaper stuck to a plate with LocTite spray adhesive. You can start as coarse as 150 grit if necessary. For heavy edge repair, I sometimes use the el cheapo diamond plates from Harbor Freight. (These are also great for knife sharpening!) For breadknifing, a cheap carborundum stone in the 200-300 grit range. Whatever you use for edge repair, be sure your bevel is set properly, because heavy-handed steel removal methods can give you inconsistent or rounded bevels, or misalignment between the bevel and the actual edge-spine plane. One trick I use a lot is to raise a burr along the entire edge by honing just one side, then honing the same number of laps on the other side and ensuring that the entire burr has flipped over. I follow this of course with regular alternating laps to remove the burr. Then, I know absolutely that the bevel is properly set, and the progression can do its thing.

Bottom line recommendation:
Harbor Freight diamond plates or 4 sided block. Cheap... about $12. This is for very rough work as they are not as flat as a DMT.
Cheap carborundum stone for breadknifing a bad frown or a badly chipped blade, about $10
Polished marble edge tile, Home Depot, about $5
Lapping film and wet/dry sandpaper assortments.

Optional:
Norton 220/1k combo instead of the bottom 3 items, I think about $40 currently.

[smalltank]

if you get a dmt1200..you can set your bevels AND lap your coti ;-)

[dakotaev]

I would have to agree with the majority here.

Chosera 1K - It is so fast compared to other stones I've used. And as the others have said, it leaves a nicer looking finish, I find my DMT leaves some deep scratches that won't come out during the rest of the progression.

I do keep my DMT 600/1200 combo around for the tough stuff though.

[Gamma]

pffttt as if. like i'd forget those. get your glasses on, will ya?

Nice repsonse. Forgive me - I miseed it scrolling on my phone.

[rickboone1]

Nice repsonse. Forgive me - I miseed it scrolling on my phone.

lol

[Slash McCoy]

I find my DMT leaves some deep scratches that won't come out during the rest of the progression.

They will, if you use enough laps in the next stage of your progression before you jump ahead to the next next one. Don't jump up until the current stage has completely performed its task of replacing the scratches of the previous stage with its own, finer scratches. That is the whole secret. Bam. Best bet... follow your 1200 DMT with a Norton 1k if you are having this problem. It will smooth out the DMT work much quicker than if you go to a 4k or some 6u film. I know it sounds counterproductive to follow 1.2k with 1k, but the scratches left by a DMT are not really 1.2k depth scratches, sometimes, as you have found.

DMT seems to have inconsistent particle sizes, or maybe it is actually inconsistent particle height in the matrix. Once it has a lot of wear on it this should not be such an issue. Ironically, cheaper diamond hones don't suffer from this problem very much, though they tend to not be as flat as a DMT or as long lasting as a DMT.

[dakotaev]

They will, if you use enough laps in the next stage of your progression before you jump ahead to the next next one. Don't jump up until the current stage has completely performed its task of replacing the scratches of the previous stage with its own, finer scratches. That is the whole secret. Bam. Best bet... follow your 1200 DMT with a Norton 1k if you are having this problem. It will smooth out the DMT work much quicker than if you go to a 4k or some 6u film. I know it sounds counterproductive to follow 1.2k with 1k, but the scratches left by a DMT are not really 1.2k depth scratches, sometimes, as you have found.

DMT seems to have inconsistent particle sizes, or maybe it is actually inconsistent particle height in the matrix. Once it has a lot of wear on it this should not be such an issue. Ironically, cheaper diamond hones don't suffer from this problem very much, though they tend to not be as flat as a DMT or as long lasting as a DMT.

True, my 1200 side has a few rogue diamonds sticking up that leave really deep scratches, I can feel it when I go over them it really annoys me. I could spend more time progressively honing them out with another stone but I mainly replaced the DMT with the Chosera, since then I haven't used the DMT.

[Prof. Moriarty]

Get the DMT 325 for lapping your stones. And, plus is, it's good to have for nasty razors off ebay and such.

Is there a BEST bevel setter? ha ha... Yep, and there's a BEST finishing stone, too. It's JNats. I mean Coticules. I mean Charnley Forest. I mean Thurri, no wait...vintage Thurry....no no...blue/ green with oil and the moon full.

So, pardon my sarcasm. My point is this. This week, Chosera is the stone of choice. It's a great stone. It's popular, it does the job. It's $100. Well, just under, perhaps. Find SOMETHING to set bevels. Learn it. Use it. Love it. You could get wet/ dry sandpaper and a flat plate (granite or something) to set bevels and be just fine.

I know what you are talking about mate, so don't worry about the sarcasm. I was just curious about everyones opinions (and I realise at the end of the day they are just that. Opinions).
Thanks for the list of everything, and your opinions on em. Appreciate it.

[tinkersd]

I don't understand all this 325k/1k/220k talk!! I do circles on my Norton 4K side of my Nrtn 4k/8k, then X-Strokes on the 4k until I can pop arm hair, then I move on to me 8K, it took my quite a while to figure this out, but after a few Str8's it came to me in a dream, You other blokes remove to much metal with those low grit stone's! Unless you do have a nick to stone out, keep from removing to much blade.
Just MHO, YMMV, thank you for reading what is JUST my opinion, as ever, tinkersd

[Doc226]

Yep, and there's a BEST finishing stone, too. It's JNats. I mean Coticules. I mean Charnley Forest. I mean Thurri, no wait...vintage Thurry....no no...blue/ green with oil and the moon full.

HA, everyone knows the best finisher is a stone with slurry raised from an unicorn's horn, diluted with angel tears, finished on dragon sweat.

I don't understand all this 325k/1k/220k talk!! I do circles on my Norton 4K side of my Nrtn 4k/8k, then X-Strokes on the 4k until I can pop arm hair, then I move on to me 8K, it took my quite a while to figure this out, but after a few Str8's it came to me in a dream, You other blokes remove to much metal with those low grit stone's! Unless you do have a nick to stone out, keep from removing to much blade.
Just MHO, YMMV, thank you for reading what is JUST my opinion, as ever, tinkersd

Can you set a bevel on a 4K stone? Sure but it is not practical-takes too long.

[Wid]

No matter the grit of the stone the same amount of metal is removed to correct a bevel, one is just a chitload faster.

[ladykate]

On most old razors I start with a DMT 325 to establish a good bevel then go to 1K. I've ran into some pretty rough edges that would take forever on just a 1K stone.

Ditto. The 325 is the one I go to for most heavy work. An example is setting the bevel in a GD for the first time. I do like to tape the spine when using such a coarse stone, though. Usually, since I'm just tearing off metal to get close to the right angles, I bear down on the edge more than the spine anyway. Once it is kitchen knife sharp and the bevel is even (you can shave arm hair from a 325) then on to higher grits and no tape.

[duderdo]

I've always used my Shapton Pro 1k for bevel setting, and I've always had the feeling that it isn't great at the job. I rarely see it mentioned as a good option for bevel setting, am I crazy for thinking that something else would be significantly better?

[danjared]

I've always used my Shapton Pro 1k for bevel setting, and I've always had the feeling that it isn't great at the job. I rarely see it mentioned as a good option for bevel setting, am I crazy for thinking that something else would be significantly better?

I used to use a Shapton GS 500 and a GS 1000 for all low-grit work. Now I use a Cretan hone or a coticule with heavy slurry unless I need to reshape the edge geometry or otherwise remove a lot of steel, in which case I go back to the Shaptons. I like them enough that I've thought of getting similar low-grit Shapton Pros. Not having to soak the Shaptons is really nice, and they're very nice in other respects as well.

[ridnovir]

I use Choseras 400 then 1K