Water Stone 'accessories' for lapping?

Joined
Dec 16, 2003
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I'm getting a pair of 1000 and 5000 Shapton Pro water stones and would like to know what else I would need re: to do the lapping of the stones and what others would recommend?

I see there are things like the 'circular disc' for seventeen bucks; a ceramic 100 grit flattening stone (4 lbs) for seventy four bucks; and a grooved 300 grit ceramic stone for seventeen bucks.

Plus you have the Nagura stones for adding to the lapping, etc.

Any suggestions for a newbie with water stones? I've read a lot of the posts here but the lapping part...not much on this. Shapton talks about up to 400 grit paper on their site before 'clogging', but it would be good to hear what you folks use on a regular basis.
 
Sandpaper on a flat surface. SiC wet/dry paper will probably work better than regular sandpaper. Rockler.com's 'scary sharp' system flatten your waterstones and provide you with another means of getting that ultimate edge.
 
yuzuha said:
I use my dmt diamond plates to flatten my stones. The really coarse ones get the concrete treatment. Norton also makes a flattening stone http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=toolshop&Product_Code=NO-FLAT&Category_Code=THW

Thanks. The flattening stone looks good!

I called the local Woodcraft shop who has the stone. He said this is not compatible with the Shapton Pro stones. Something about the ceramics?

Is this correct?

I don't see why the Norton flattening stone would not work well with the Shaptons? :confused:

What do you think?
 
I talked to a man at Japan Woodworker about this yesterday while ordering waterstones from them. His advise for flattening was the same as given above. Use 220-400 frit wet dry sandpaper on a piece of float glass. Just use Figure 8 strokes until stone is flat.
A.
 
Dude... my waterstones are so concave that I can literally comfortably watch the show 24 through the gap between 2 of them.

I think I might just take a cinderblock and use a figure 8 motion on the side to grind mine down... then use some sandpaper on glass.
 
Climb14er said:
Thanks. The flattening stone looks good!

I called the local Woodcraft shop who has the stone. He said this is not compatible with the Shapton Pro stones. Something about the ceramics?

Is this correct?

I don't see why the Norton flattening stone would not work well with the Shaptons? :confused:

What do you think?

I've not tried the Norton flattener so I'm not sure what he meant. AFIK, the Shapton pro stones are resin bonded Aluminum oxide, so it acts a bit like a block of epoxy loaded with stone dust (doesn't absorb water like a normal stone but will soften at the surface if left to soak). I've heard people mention that grit can embed itself in these stones so it is possible that if the Norton plate is friable silicon carbide, that some of the coarser grit from it could stick in the surface of the stone and basically contaminate it (resulting in it leaving a scratched surface on your knives). If this is what he meant, then you can usually get rid of it by scrubbing the surface of the stone with a nagura to get rid of the embedded grit from the lap. I've not run into that problem because if I lap my fine shaptons on a coarse SiC stone, I go back and smooth the surface a little with a finer diamond plate and then give it a scrub with a nagura to restore that nice smooth finish.
 
I spoke with Shapton earlier and they said I could use the Norton flattening stone but recommended using approx 120 grit wet/dry on flat glass, as a 'starter' to keep the stones lapped.

Of course their 120.00 flattening plate plus various grit powders were recommended and I can understand why.

I ordered the two stones from Japanwoodworker and will use the 120 wet/dry paper on glass in the interim to get started.
 
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