Naniwa Chocera Pro Stones

[Its_Raw]

On the recommendation of CharlieL, I bought a couple Naniwa Chosera Pro waterstones. They arrived today and I grabbed a very cheap, dull knife and gave it a go. I started off purchasing the 400 and 1000 grit stones. I was very pleased with my first try by hand. The 400 was very aggressive and did not require a lot of time to use. It was also very responsive in that I could feel and hear what it was doing - again, keep in mind I have no experience up to this point, but I was feeling and hearing something... The 1000 also performed well. I was able to get the knife back to moderately shaving sharpness. Definitely not the sharpest result I have ever obtained, but definitely sharp. I beleive my angles were not consistent and one side of the blade was flatter ground than the other. I hope this gets better with practice. I might purchase a 3000 and some of those rubber or silicone angle guides next.

 

[Culinary Otter]

Quick and dirty (and precise!) way to find an angle:

Get 4-5 nickels. Lay one down as a spacer, put the others in a stack directly behind it. Each nickel in the stack is 5 degrees, so use 3 (15 deg) for a Japanese knife or 4 (20 deg) for a Western. Put the blade down against the spacer, remove the spacer, then lay the knife down until it lays on the nickel stack.

Same (correct) angle every time, no silicon guides needed! Give me a couple minutes and I'll post an example pic.

 

[Culinary Otter]

Sorry for the low quality pics, if I would have had time would have grabbed a stone - just heading out the door. Should give you an idea though.

Lol and before you ask about the beaver on the nickel this works with either US or Cdn coins

 

[Its_Raw]

I gave the nickels a try, but they kept falling over and sliding about. Any tips?

Also, I couldn't wait and ordered the 3000 grit stone....

 

[Culinary Otter]

Not sure what's happening.

Don't need to put any pressure on the nickels just go until the knife touches them. If they fall so be it.

I just use that to set up my first pass on one side. I don't reset every swipe, just keep the knife roughly at that angle until you're ready to flip to the other side.

 

[Culinary Otter]

You could always try wrapping a strip of tape around the stack. That would hold it and not change the angle enough to worry about.