Edge Pro Apex 3--- additional stone

The Chosera 5K is an excellent stone and a good follow up to the 7.7u EP 1K. 

While it's a decent final stone for a Shun, the Chosera 5K is a medium/fine and not a true polishing stone.  I forget which OEM stones are available for the EP, but you could certainly go all the way up to a 10K.  

But before getting the cart too far ahead of the horses, there is a bit of a learning curve to the EP and you may find the step to 5K a bit problematic.  It's nothing you can't overcome with judicious application of the Magic Marker trick and a basic understanding of sharpening -- just sayin' is all.  Good luck with your EP. 

Use it in good health,
BDL

I think you'll really like the 5k Chocera for the EP.  True, it's not really a polishing stone but a Shun will be screaming sharp coming off of that.  When doing freebie sharpening of Shuns for my coworkers I often stop at the 5k.  However, it's really worth it getting the 10k, too.  FWIW I have most of the available Choceras for the EP:  400, 800, 1k, 2k, 3k, 5k & 10k.  I also have most of the Shaptons Pro stones:  120, 320, 1k, 2k, 5k, 8k & 15k.  Well, I have a few other custom jobs, too.  I can't say enough good about them.  Like you, I find the tapes to be a hassle- they do a fine job but I like the simplicity of a stone.

To answer your question, yes- the 5k is a good step from the 1000 OEM stone.  The "softness" of the 5k Chocera really isn't much of an issue on the EP.  True, freehand you might gouge the stone but you'd have to be pretty ham-fisted to do so with a guided system like the EP.  It may wear a tad faster than the OEM stones but you're not gonna be grinding away a ton of steel with a stone that fine.

Of course, if you haven't made your purchase yet it's worth considering stepping up to the [url=http://www.chefknivestogo.com/edge-pro-sharpener.html]Edge Pro 5 Kit.[/url]  Lots of Chocera goodness there.  Plus free shipping, and there's an available discount of 5% on it.

There is a little duplication, but not where you think.  The grit of the OEM stones is rated on a different scale than the Japanese waterstones from Naniwa.  EPs OEM 320 is roughly 1k (1,000) on the J-scale.  The 400 Chocera falls somewhere between the OEM 120 & 220.  IMOHO the 400 Chocera is the finest coarse stone in the world...although the utility of a coarse stone cut that thin is a bit dubious.  I personally would (and do) use a DMT Diasharp XC mounted to an EP blank for that.

I will say, the OEM 320 is the best stone EP sells.  However, the 1k Chocera might be the best 1,000 stone on the planet.  Certainly it's the one stone I couldn't live without.  If you get that set, use the OEM 320 for your buddy's knives and keep the Chocera for your own.

The Choceras are so "dense" (ie the ratio of media to binder) that you can make very large jumps in grit level and still get great results.

I guess that's the long-and-the-short of it for me:  The Naniwa Choceras are incredible stones.  They're competitive with the best at every grit and untouchable at a few.  Some may disagree but I'd say the Chocera 10k has no equal.  They're expensive stones but well worth it.  And it's hard to beat Mark's combo price if you buy the Apex 5 kit.

There's no such thing as too sharp!  The Chocera 10k will give you an edge that will fall thru food under the weight of the blade, if you do your part.  I guess what you've read is that you need a rough or "toothy" edge to cut a tomato.  Well, that's not true at all.  Yeah, a toothy edge will get the job done but so will a razor sharp polished edge.

The OEM stones that EP supplies are, frankly, stupid good.  You could use them for the rest of your life and get incredible edges, never needing anything more.  But yeah, the Naniwa stones are on another level.  The EP stones are great sirlions, the Choceras are Kobe beef.  Ultimately I have to agree with Murray Carter:  Sharpening is 5% equipment and 95% technique.  If your do it right you'll get great results with just the OEM stones.

    Hi there,

  I certainly don't have the sharpening experience that many others here.  But I have had great results using my EP Apex on my knives.  I do have a mix of some Shapton and Chocera stones.  But I also enjoy the Edge Pro stones.  When I first started using the EdgePro I found it useful to use the EdgePro stones instead of the more expensive stones.  The edgepro stones can also come in handy once you start getting the hang of sharpening, once you start sharpening all your friends and families knives too.  Why use your expensive stones on a few regular ol' knives?

   have fun!

  dan 

Well, you're not likely to damage the Choceras but I guess there's no harm in learning on the cheaper ones and saving the Naniwas "for good".  The worst you're likely to do is use more stone than you need to, and that's not a disaster or anything.

I soak mine for about 20 minutes.  But I do that with my Shaptons, too, and they're supposed to not need it.  After a bit of a soak I spritz them occasionally with a spray bottle I got at Wally World for $.99.  A spray bottle works much better than the supplied squeeze bottle IME.  A few light licks on a ceramic hone will usually bring the edge back several times, depending on the knife.  Going back to the EP, you can often just start with the 5k assuming you didn't let your knife get too dull or beat up.  You really don't usually need to go as coarse as 1k.  I've been warned not to over-soak the Choceras, that they can become gummy or even crack.  Supposedly this takes hours of soaking; basically it's an admonishment not to store them in water.  But I've kept my soaks to no more than an hour or so and never had any issues.

Many will probably disagree but I loathe the OEM 120 stone.  It's really awful to use.  I don't like the feel and for me it dishes at an unacceptable rate.  An EP user that's more knowledgeable than I once told me the trick is to use very light pressure, and I believe for him it probably works but I don't like it.  I think the Chocera 400 and Shapton Pro 320 are much better choices.  My solution was to glue 2x6" DMT Diasharps to EP blanks and use an XC and a C in place of most of the my coarse stones.  This works very, very well for me.  The XC is 220 micron IIRC and really hogs metal fast.  The C is nominally 320 I think but mine is a few years old and very worn/broken in.  In use it leaves scratch marks that really appear to be around 500 grit.  I can go XC, then C, then right to a 1k waterstone very nicely. 

If you're interested in the DMT route, I initially just glued the C to an OEM 1x6" blank I got from EP with JB Qwik Weld epoxy.  Later on I had a friend (the guy that originally started selling the Choceras and Shaptons for the EP) make me some 2x6" blanks and mounted the XC on one them.  The results were good enought that he's now offering it as a regular product thru Jende Industries.  I can't say enough good about it and use the DMTs for a lot of my rough work.  Anything that needs more than that gets started off on my belt grinder with a 60 grit cubic zirconia belt.

Cool!  I'm glad the EP is working out for you.  As much as I loved my Apex, the Pro is even better.  Still, the Apex is a great system for keeping your knives sharp, especially for the price.