Lapping dished EdgePro hones

T

thombrogan

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Nov 16, 2002
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<blank/> me for procrastinating, but I finally dried out my coarse EdgePro hone to straighten it out. An hour later, I threw in the towel. It's straighter, but I definitely waited too long. There was a half a millimeter's difference in thickness between the ends and the rest of the hone. It's closer to flat now, but not by much.

For other EdgePro owners who haven't made it a habit of frequent straightening your hones, it's better to get into practice as soon as you can. Otherwise, a lot fun involving fiberboard or cinderblocks awaits you. Maybe every 4 or so sharpenings, let the hones dry and then straighten them. Your knives and nerves will thank you.
 
Thanks for the "head's up". I've been lapping occasionally. But the better I get using my EdgePro, the more important it seems to become. Time to true-up my whole set.

Those coarse stones realy seem to wear fast. FYI, Dale now sends a 120 grit instead of a 100 grit stone as the basic coarse stone. Just in case you wanted to try one out.
 
The coarser the stone, generally speaking, the faster it dishes. For trying my waterstones (no Edge Pro yet), I use a piece of glass with mylar on it, and some 90x grit. All fo this came from www.leevalley.com the Lee Valley Tools place. My stuff actually came with a large sharpenign set I bought. It doesn't take long at all to resurface stone swith the 90 grit particles on my piece of plate glass. For largely dished stones, I do Karate Kid Wax-on, Wax-off motions outside on the pavement. After getting rid of the majority of the "bad" stone bits, the lapping on the glass doesn't take long at all.

Good advice though Thom, regular maintenance on stones is faster than leaving things, much like edge maintenance is better than letting things get real dull.
 
The only advise that Ben Dale gives Edge Pro users that I disagree with is his suggestion to use sand to lap his hones.

Takes far to long.

Like Crayola, I use silicon carbide grit from Lee Valley.

A little quicker.
 
Lapp it on a piece of concrete and fine beach sand, you should be able to get out that level of dish (<1 mm) in under a minute. You also want to have it fully wet when lapping.

-Cliff
 
I might just order some new stones until I have a chance to lap mine. :)

Cliff, how smooth is the concrete block you use? Is it like a cinder block as I know they can be pretty rough and porous.
 
sand on concrete didn't work for me. I used a cheap carborundum stone (less than $3) to straighten my 100 grit stone. To be honest, it still isn't fully straight, I procrastinated too much.

But now I have the 120 grit stone :D
 
It is just a normal concrete block, the surface is quite rough, which is what you want. Just press down hard and the stone will be flat in no time.

You need the stone to be wet as otherwise the grindability is horrible, many time to one slower. Get the stones fully soaked and they are so easy to cut you can readily saw them in half which I have done to make smaller ones.

-Cliff
 
i see, perhaps the problem I had was because I didn't wet the stones. ok, I still have the bag of sand Ben Dale shipped with the set....will look for a flat concrete block somewhere :confused:
 
I've got a question while were on the subject of edge pro.
The way the picture looks on their site it seems you have to hold the knife on the sharpner with one hand and work the hone with the other. Is this correct? or is their some sort of clamp that the knife is held by?

Secondly, If you have to hold the knife manually on the sharpner, how well do odd shaped blades stay on the sharpner without slipping while working the hone? Example: a recurve hollow ground bowie type blade.
 
Thanks for the heads up gentlemen I will keep those stones honed often. As to the sharpening question yes one hand holds the knife and the other operates the stone there is no clamp involved, which on some knives can prove a learning experience IMO Apparently if you set the knife on a hollow grind face you should allow a 2 degree increase for the extra angle that creates for eg if you want 17 set it to 19 am I correct here?
 
Here's a shot of my Edge Pro in action. Blades without a nice flat area present a bit of a challenge depending on the shape of the blade.

edgepro.jpg
 
Ah yes now I see, Thanks for the pic. One thing I notice is, the edge pro is bigger than I thought. I think santa is bringing me an apex model with the stone upgrade kit. cant wait to get my paws on it and give er a try.
 
I'm reading up a lot about the Edge Pro, and I even got a nice batch of e-mails from The Tourist (Thanks man!) and Ben Dale too. Anyways, one thing I don't understand is this concern over knives with no "flat" area. All you want really is to keep the knife still in one position, so can't you lay the knife on the bed so that the very top by the spine and an area along the edge (i.e. lay the knife's primary bevel, so to speak)down on the bed and then you'll have the knife secure? Sure you can't just set your Edg Pro to a 19 degree setting if you want 19 degrees, but compensating for the bevel angle shouldn't be troublesome. So you may have to set the angle to 27 degrees to get a 19 degree bevel... so what? Of course, I don't have an Edge pro to play with these ideas myself, so I may be in the wrong here. But for most of these angle worries, it seems to me that it i slike worrying about a Rockwell tester that reports hardness 3 points under the actual rating, but CONSISTENTLY does so. It ain't any stretch to just add 3 points to what is measured! I don't see it as being all that difficult to lay a knife on the bed on its primary bevel and use the Magic Marker method to set the arm at whatever setting is needed to get the desired angle.

A bit more on lappig stones: Sure the cinder block has a rough surface and looks porous: that is what you want to lap rough stones! You'll flatten a stone in no time on a cinder block. Sprinkle a bit of SiC powder on the block too if you really want to speed things up a bit. From the cinder block, go to a lapping plate (get that piece of glass from Lee Valley!) with SiC on it: you'll really get the stone flat in a jiffy, and it will cut like a demon on your first knife or 2 as well. When I get a rough stone flat, I like to rub it against my fine stone to flatten it.
 
Originally posted by Cliff Stamp
Lapp it on a piece of concrete and fine beach sand, you should be able to get out that level of dish (<1 mm) in under a minute. You also want to have it fully wet when lapping.

-Cliff
Click to expand...

Cliff,
This just did not work for me.
Maybe my sand was not sharp enough. ( serious...no joke )

However the silicon carbide did work.

Edge Pro's stones, while refered to as 'water stones'
do not behave like any Japanese water stone I own. They are much harder.

I believe that they are incorectly referd to as water stones
just because they use water as a lubricant.
 
Originally posted by Crayola
I don't understand is this concern over knives with no "flat" area.
Click to expand...

I feel that the Edge Pro instruction book should explain this better.

Because there is no clamp, the blade has to remain flat and in perfect contact with the table. ( See pic above ).

Now the geometry of some blades makes this a little inconsistent.
An example would be a Kershaw Scallion. It has two distinct flat areas on the blade and if you are not careful the blade can rock.

If it does, your chosen angle will not be maintained.

So you have to decide which flat you are going to use and stick with it, during the sharpening session and later times when re sharpening.

This only happens with a few knives and once you understand what is happening it is easy to adjust your sharpening procedure with that specific blade.

The hardest thing for me to master was swaping hands when sharpening the other side.
 
Just ordered a lapping plate and the grit. I noticed there are different grit grits. :) If you're lapping say a 320 stone should you finish with a finer grit, or is the 90x fine for all the stones?
 
Originally posted by WadeF
Just ordered a lapping plate and the grit. I noticed there are different grit grits. :) If you're lapping say a 320 stone should you finish with a finer grit, or is the 90x fine for all the stones?
Click to expand...

I have only lapped my old 100 and 220 and the Lee Valey grit was fine.

I don't remember the grit size....sorry. Came in a kit for about $10.00 ( Canadian )
 
Wade:

you can use the x90 to get it flat and then any other grit to "ressurface" the stone. If you lapped the 600 grit stone with the x90 grit, the 600 grit stone will cut much more aggressively than what it "should" at first, until the very aggressive surface wears in. If you are picky, get all the grits. Otherwise, the x90 will do ya, or if you can, get 2 grits, and use both on yoru finer stones (x90 to flatten, and the higher grit to resurface to a less aggressive surface).
 
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