couple of questions about the naniwa snow white

Hi all,
I wonder what´s the Naniwa Snow White (Junpaku, IIRC) about? it´s magnesia (so definitely not a SS), but it ain´t a chosera either (at least it´s not branded a cho). It´s rather cheaper than a Chosera, but it´s also a bit smaller in size. Is it meant to fill the gap between the Chosera 5K and 10K?

The reason why i´m curious is that i always (well, always might be stretching things a bit...) fancied about having a Chosera 10 K as my last stone, but couldn´t justify its cost. At present my last stone is a SS 8K, which in all honesty has served me fine til now, but having received a little extra money i started asking myself if the Snow White would give me a little something extra.
Any help appreciated,

Thanks in advance,
Miguel.

It predates the choseras. For practical purposes, you can figure that the difference in price between the choseras and the snow white is a matter of pricing policy and not quality.

It's not quite as fine as the chosera 10,000 but it's plenty fine for use and it may be more practical.

When the chosera 10k came out, it was available in europe for the equivalent of about $140 for a while. Then naniwa decided that it would nearly double in cost. My understanding (and I could be corrected by someone who is actually in japan) is that the choseras are present in a lot of high-end knife shops over there, so their pricing may be something of market positioning (as in, if your market has the money to pay a lot more than another market might think the stone was worth, charge the market and get the money, anyway).

Is the cho 10k a great stone? It certainly is. It's as good as any finish stone when you consider the balance of speed and polish, and when it's soaked, it has a dreamy feel.

If you hadn't read cho 10k ad copy and didn't know the price difference, you would think it was maybe a $30 more expensive stone than the snow white. You'd probably figure the snow white is priced what it should be at $100.

There's a guy in japan who sells stones on ebay and who had a private label magnesia bond stone made (6k grit stone, not quite as fine as the snow white) and he sold it on ebay for a while for $38 with shipping. It's a great stone, too.

I like the chosera stones, but I've never really figured out where they get their pricing ideas. I guess I've had three of them, too (choseras 400, 3k, 10k), and had the snow white, too - I just don't see the cost justification for the choseras, but then again, some of the glasstone stuff has bizarre prices, too. Especially the lapping thing and some of the specific grits have funny prices.

The snow white, by the way, is miles faster than the superstone. The tougher the steel, the bigger the gap.

Thanks David, you´re da man. To be honest, the 8K SS fits my needs, this is mostly just a step down the slippery slope. Just so you see how futile this search is, my main gripe with the SS (besides not being uber fast) is the color (i have the yellow one, i guess they also make another color in 8K) - that thing really is the opposite of zen.
I´m also far from a pro at sharpening, so maybe i wouldn´t get all the bells n´whistles of a 10 K Cho (my wife wouldn´t either...). The thing is, my Chosera 2 K seems so much swifter than my 2 K SS. I guess i´ll also need to soup up my 5 K SS in the near future... oh, the slope...


all the best,
Miguel.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. With a mediocre medium stone and a mediocre finish stone, you can do everything you'll ever need to do.

The virtues of the chosera are that it's smooth and very fast for its fineness. The snow white is pretty close behind, though.

I think if you have a 1k stone and the naniwa snow white, you can pretty much leave the other stones as is without having to spend the money (you can always spend it if you want, though).

The only time I find myself wanting something between my 1K and the Naniwa Snow White is preparing new-to-me blades on old tools that need a lot of work on the back. After the back has been brought into shape, those two stones do everything I want.

I really liked the step up from the Superstones to my setup. It turns out I prefer something harder - the Superstones are quite soft compared to the Snow White and the Sigma 1k I'm now using.

My only two major complaints with the Superstones were that my 1K wasn't bonded well to it's plastic base, so it flexes some in use, and keeping it flat is a bear because of this. Because of the softness of the Superstones, you also need to be a bit careful about using the whole stone (this is where freehanding helps) to keep from having to flatten a lot unnecessarily. My other complaint was that the 8k Superstone is almost like a strop, in that it seems to polish more than it cuts, so if I leave too much of a wire edge from the 5K before it, it was a lot of work to work that off sometimes.

That´s even better. Since i already have a Sigma 1 K and a chosera 2 K, the Snow White seems like it could just round up the system, and keep it manageable. but then my pile of "not in use" stones keeps getting higher...

Pretty much whats already been said. It's very similar to the chosera's. Not quite as hard as the Cho 10, not quite as fine, and not quite as bright a final polish...but for all practical purposes just as good and edge. Very nice stone to use, and very very fast for its finess, just like the 10k. Side by side you can tell its a different stone, but it is 90-99% of what the Cho 10k is for less than 50% of the cost. I'm a big fan of it.

My main stone setup btw, is a Cho 800 followed by a Snow White..its a setup I've been very happy with for a couple years.

I´ve been for a couple of days toying with the stone. Less stiction (is this the proper name?) than the super stone. Faster and more tactile feedback. Very smooth, it seems to create more "mud" than the SS 8K. I tried it directly from a Chosera 2K and from a Shapton Pro 1K, worked pretty well. So far, so good. Nice stone!

Thanks again,
Miguel.

It can definitively make those jumps. I go to the SW8k straight from a Cho 800 (similar micron size as Shapton 1k). That whats so great about it. It can go from a 800-1kish stone to a very fine edge so effortlessly without anything in between. Fantastic stone, especially for the price.

Glad to hear its working out so well for you.