Customer Reviews

Bradley Robinson

Owner of Cutting Edge Customer Sharpening

Owner, Founder of Phantom Edge Shears 

The products. They are absolutely fantastic. From the precision and brilliant surface they produce on all the stones I brought to test with, I am blown away. The reliability and consistency in which the lapping plates perform is far and above anything else on the market. 
Your lapping plates cut aggressively. It was almost frightening. But the surface condition of the stones was perfect! All of my stones we tested at the shop, and the others I played with this morning required no further surface work beyond the NL5. They had exactly the surface and "topography" that I would require. This is very impressive and should be taken note of by any skeptic about an aggressive but perfect lapping plate. 
The stones. The 70 micron stone cut quickly and consistently. It had an amazing feel, and didnt dish or hollow nearly at all. My other low grit stones would never have gone that far without multiple relapping. The 35 micron was fully played with, but today's work on it I was impressed. The 35 micron put a finish much finer than its proposed grit range. The most impressive of the stones was the 2 micron. It was able to finish edges with much higher precision than any other stone I've ever used that fall within the same micron range. 
The edge it produced and the cleanliness in the "polish" far exceeded my 8k grit Shapton Pro stone. One very important thing to note, shapton stones in the higher grits, as they load, get very slippery and their feedback changes. Your stones, accross the board, are consistent and cut consistently no matter they're condition. Even after lapping with my NL5 (and soon to be NL10), your stones require no further "topographical" adjustment. Other lapping plates, and other stones require burnishing or break-in. Out of the box, the stone I tried (2 micron) while I was at your shop performed flawlessly. As you saw. After lapping with a brand new NL5, the only change was the stone was slightly more flat. There was no change in feel, performance, cut, finish....it just worked and worked perfectly. 
The accessories are also unparalleled in the industry. The stage is absolutely a must, and the ponds look and feel rock solid. All in all, as a production sharpener, your Nano Hone products will absolutely be a minute-by-minute driver for all of my hand finishing on any edged tool. 
As someone who bought a house on sharpening, I can honestly say that Nano-Hone is absolutely a new required product for my kit. I wouldnt be surprised if by the end of 2019 I have multiples of every product, just in case. To anyone who is skeptical, you will never understand untill you drop the dime. And once you do, you'll kick yourself for waiting. 

David Sipos 

Thank you for making one of the most precise tools for our trade. This nano hone has improved my sharpening skills and elevated it to a level I never knew could be reached. Talk about flatness:)

This is dead on and I am happy to acknowledge that having this stone brought me just as much joy as purchasing other Japanese or German machinery. Precision at this level is something I always aim for and was eager to try it out right away. I flattened the back of a chisel so fast that I could hardly believe my eyes.

Flattening the stones was easy and the flatness was already showing through the stone not to mention when the chisel glided on it with such ease. I only use a 1200 and a ceramic stone for most work and the finish on the chisels was so much better. I guess there is a new meaning of flat to me experiencing this precision stone.

 

Dayna Schleifer

I have been testing the Nano Hone NL-5 and NL-10 lapping plates for the last 7 months. I am a full time sharpener and have put these 2 lapping plates through the ringer using them every day on many various materials and grit ranges.

The NL-5 works beautifully for a intermediate lapping plate and I highly recommend this plate for the shear/scissor industry as we are typically using stones in the ranges given above. The plate is still working extremely well after 7 months of use every day. I use this plate a bit differently than other sharpeners. I actually use it only to lap but to create slurry in between sharpening of individual blades to avoid cross contamination. The reason I mention this is so that you can get an accurate analysis of how much I uses this plate every day.

The NL-10 is an AWESOME flattening plate if your needs are to maintain a water stone on a daily basis I would recommend the NL-5 But if you are like most sharpeners and only flatten/lap your stones on a weekly or even monthly basis the NL-10 is the father of lapping plates. It's virtually indestructible and extremely flat, very fast cutting. It's very heavy, so the plate helps a lot in using its weight to lend a hand in pressure. I give the plate a 9 out of 10 stars. The only deduction is due to the design, it's next to impossible to work the edges of the water stone to get a flat bevel without damaging the stone.

 

 

Donna Wright

It was a pleasure and privilege to have the opportunity to review these two NanoHone products in the field. I flatten my stones several times a day, I'm a mobile sharpener, and looking for a product that will produce a precisely flattened surface, with as little material removal as possible, and with as little mess as possible in my mobile environment.

I tested the Ridgetech, NL-5 star pattern 50 micron first for a week. It is a very nice lapping plate, I used it exclusively on my Shapton and Japanese Ceramic stones or 400, 1000, and 2000 grit. The process I followed was to place the stone in a tray, mist the surface evenly with water, and lap with the plate until smooth, level, flattened.

This was a new process for me. Prior to this test, I flattened the stones by lapping over wet/dry sandpaper on a piece of glass, which often resulted in sandpaper coming apart, and often was messy and frustrating. I also sometimes rubbed stones together to flatten.

I found the Ridgetech lapping plate to rub very smoothly across the stones, and while it did not take much pressure to flatten, it did take several passes before it really started to work. I found that it started slow, but then dug in more with each pass and the results were very nice, smooth, flat and easy to obtain. There was good control over the amount of material removed during the lapping process, and it was easy to tell when the stone was nicely flattened.

I then tried the NL-10 Button Tech. I found it to be very heavy, It self cleans very well, with very little scarf buildup. I needed very light and consistent pressure, and found that if I applied pressure even a little off to one side or the other, the result was still flat, but I removed more material to one side, resulting in uneven wear on my stone.

Over all, for my application, I prefer the Ridgetech, as it is lighter and easier to manage in my mobile environment. I would recommend the ButtonTech for anyone is a higher volume, shop based environment, and I think it worked better underwater that with just a spray of water on the stone.

Thank you NanoHone for developing these great stones, I highly recommend both as a great addition to any tool kit - far superior to any other method I have used to flatten my stones.

 

 

 Andrew Tarling 

So this is the day after getting down and dirty with your 200 grit stone.. 
I've had this yanagi sitting in a drawer for a few years, it's my first one.. I've made plenty of mistakes over the course of me learning to sharpen, this knife being the epitome of them.. Also, I've had a couple different people work on it, the last one put such a weird convex grind on it that I didn't even recognize it..
When your stone arrived, I knew it was a beast as soon as I felt it.. I thought of the best knife to test it out... The yanagi of shame... Perfect. I began.. 6 hours later, I was ready to start the stone progression..
The 200 is incredibly aggressive, but also feels good to use. It stayed flat for an incredible amount of time, I only had to flatten it twice for the entire job. I feel like it's in between a shapton glass and a vitrified diamond stone.. for me, it's perfect, and I will absolutely be buying more from you guys.
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