Rutlands Japanese Glass stones

[nosuchhounds]

https://www.rutlands.com/sp+premium-200mm-japanese-glass-stones-set-of-3+R7543
These seem interesting. I use relavitly cheap water stones at the moment, itd be nice to not have to soak them.

 

[D_W]

Someone with shapton glasstones should take one for the team and compare these.

White alumina is fairly inexpensive to buy and I always wondered why something like a shapton "30,000" is as expensive as it is. It's possible that shapton uses a more complex abrasive that's really intended to improve use for power grinding, but well graded alumina is inexpensive otherwise.

Proper grading (how even the grit is, and if it's the size claimed) and the stone binder will determine whether or not these are a good approximation of the real thing. Money-wise, there's no reason someone couldn't make a good lower cost version of the shapton stones.