Lapping stones for flatness

trailhunter

trailhunter

Joined
May 15, 2018
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I have several stones and chosera I'd like to lap as regular maintenance, what does everyone use to keep their stones flat? I was looking at Atoma diamond plates but they are 70 a piece. Any feedback is appreciated!
 
I use SiC on plate glass if I'm doing a ton of stones at once. Or I will use stearate-coated sandpaper on an 8x3 sanding block if I'm just doing a random lapping. The coating prevents the paper from loading so you can use the crap out of it. I also find the Naniwa SiC flattener to be excellent and it's only, like, 20 bucks, and if you ever need to flatten it (which you technically shouldn't), then you can just lap that on your sidewalk or something.

If I'm going high-dollar, I'll use a diamond plate, or the diaflat 10x4, but honestly, the three aforementioned cost-effective solutions provided me as good results. My JKI diamond plate actually proves to be the worst of all 5 of my options when working with extremely hard stones.

Gun-to-my-head recommendation?
Naniwa SiC Truing stone for its balance of ease of use, speed, versatility (you can employ SiC powder with it to increase aggression), final surface finish (a concern for higher grit stones), and cost investment.
 
Beansandcarrots said:
I use SiC on plate glass if I'm doing a ton of stones at once. Or I will use stearate-coated sandpaper on an 8x3 sanding block if I'm just doing a random lapping. The coating prevents the paper from loading so you can use the crap out of it. I also find the Naniwa SiC flattener to be excellent and it's only, like, 20 bucks, and if you ever need to flatten it (which you technically shouldn't), then you can just lap that on your sidewalk or something.

If I'm going high-dollar, I'll use a diamond plate, or the diaflat 10x4, but honestly, the three aforementioned cost-effective solutions provided me as good results. My JKI diamond plate actually proves to be the worst of all 5 of my options when working with extremely hard stones.

Gun-to-my-head recommendation?
Naniwa SiC Truing stone for its balance of ease of use, speed, versatility (you can employ SiC powder with it to increase aggression), final surface finish (a concern for higher grit stones), and cost investment.
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Can I use this for all stones including chosera and all grit sizes without affecting the actual grit of the stones? My concern is lapping a 400 grit stone on the Naniwa and turning it into an 800 because I may have polished the 400 from lapping it.
 
trailhunter said:
Can I use this for all stones including chosera and all grit sizes without affecting the actual grit of the stones? My concern is lapping a 400 grit stone on the Naniwa and turning it into an 800 because I may have polished the 400 from lapping it.
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I haven't personally noticed any issues like that. And if it does do anything like that, the affected abrasive will be worn off quickly with use, so you shouldn't have anything to worry about

Stones I've used it on:
Shapton Pro, Glass; Chosera 1k and Pro 400, 1k, 2k and 5k, JNS stones and various others.

So far the truing stone has done its job well. I couldn't report any concerns or issues with mine
 
Actually, it is the same combination I use. I have bought Atoma #400 and #1200 replacement plate. So I have double sided stone. But #400 is my main side. #1200 side I use only for 5k stones and up.
 
trailhunter said:
Can I use this for all stones including chosera and all grit sizes without affecting the actual grit of the stones? My concern is lapping a 400 grit stone on the Naniwa and turning it into an 800 because I may have polished the 400 from lapping it.
Click to expand...
Really, grit cannot be changed. Once it is mfg. with a grit it stays that grit. The surface can be affected, smoothed to 'feel' finer but the original grit remains the same. Then as you use it the stone will wear back
to it's original 'feel'. On a ceramic and India stone this wearing back takes a long time. DM
 
David Martin said:
Really, grit cannot be changed. Once it is mfg. with a grit it stays that grit. The surface can be affected, smoothed to 'feel' finer but the original grit remains the same. Then as you use it the stone will wear back
to it's original 'feel'. On a ceramic and India stone this wearing back takes a long time. DM
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Awesome, thanks for the confirmation.
 
Be careful how often you flatten your stones I know some guys go over board when they not even close to dished and they end up removing more of the stone from flattening then do to sharpening.
I have found that Chosera's like to glaze or at least for me they have always been a pain that way and I just use a really fine diamond plate or a product called Rust Eraser that you can get from ebay just make sure they are Medium grit the fine won't do hardly anything,the Rust Eraser can also be used to remove filing's from the stone as well and it will remove less of the stone then a Nagura stone will.
 
I have a set of German rust erasers (rubberized abrasive blocks) that I picked up years ago from Lee Valley for cleaning ceramic rods and hones as well as light sanding projects. They would probably work as well on water stones, but I haven't had the opportunity to use them in that manner.

Set of three, fine, medium and coarse is about $16 or so.
 
wade7575 said:
Be careful how often you flatten your stones I know some guys go over board when they not even close to dished and they end up removing more of the stone from flattening then do to sharpening.
I have found that Chosera's like to glaze or at least for me they have always been a pain that way and I just use a really fine diamond plate or a product called Rust Eraser that you can get from ebay just make sure they are Medium grit the fine won't do hardly anything,the Rust Eraser can also be used to remove filing's from the stone as well and it will remove less of the stone then a Nagura stone will.
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Thanks! I can see myself grinding a stone away to dust. I'll be careful on over exaggerating
 
Get yourself a good straight edge ruler and use that with a bit of light behind it and even then if you can only see just tiny bit of light you still may not need to flatten your stone.
 
trailhunter said:
I was looking at Atoma diamond plates but they are 70 a piece. Any feedback is appreciated!
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$70 is inexspensive.

I may one day buy an Atoma 140
but for just the longest time I have been using these and other than for Shapton Glass (which the Atoma should be better) I use the two stones below :
The pink one with the deep grooves is designed to flatten the stones you mentioned.
Of course it wasn't flat when I got it brand new.
I used the DMT 220 / 300 to flatten the pink stone flattening stone.
Something's wrong here . . .
why not just use the DMT to flatten stones ? Which is what I do.
Every body says "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO that will destroy the diamond plate ! ! ! !"

Funny how this more than a decade old "Destroyed" diamond plate still thins and reprofiles these S110V knives quick like a bunny. o_O:confused:

IMG_4747.jpg
 
If you watch Murray Carter videos I dont think he advocates flattening stones at all.
Flat is relative I believe, I am attentive to it, but I am not gonna get anal and watch shaptons wash down the drain.
Just my thoughts, some of these stones are expensive.

Russ
 
cough, agreed. I level my Norton JUM-3 maybe every 2 years on the coarse side. As needed. The fine side
can go 5 years. And this is the most used/ needed stone. Plus, with this stone it sheds grit as it works. With
a Norton India or a Spyderco ceramic, it can go 10-12 years before it needs it. Water stones are different. DM
 
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