What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

As a former lapidary, I have lapped a ton of stuff. It is fun, but can be messy. I used to have an 18" Covington flat lapping machine for doing stone slabs. It had hard felt pads that you charged with various silicon grits to smooth the saw cuts and flatten the slabs, and then you used polishing powders to get a perfect mirror polish.

the industry, diamond are cut on cast iron laps charged with diamond powder. I have lapped a few blades for minis and folders on ceramic and diamond laps, but nothing regular knife size on large flat plates.
 
navman said:
Wondering if it could be done on curved surfaces, such as a follow grind.
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If that was "hollow grind", then ...No. an iron lap would not work.

For hollow grinds and fullers a hard felt wheel can be used to smooth and polish the surface. The wheel edge is trimmed to the shape of the surface and charged. Like a lap, it is run at a slower speed that a sanding belt.
 
yeah that was supposed to say hollow grind. I have been using EDM stones and diamond lapping films with a rubber pencil eraser as a backer for a 24' radius hollow grind. The videos from some of the Russian makers shows them using small hand held iron or steel laps with diamond paste to achieve a high polish on steels like S90V, M398, S125V, etc.

 
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Happy day yesterday!! 24# of material from Current Composite!

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Peaking in!

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Carbon fiber and Red G10, Blue Ameragrip, Orange AmeraGrip, Blue Paper, white paper, toxic green Ameragrip:

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Some natural G10 with a layer of this on the outside:
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And some paper with blue stripes!
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I got some thin black liner material, too.
 
Osage orange stains if I give it a dirty look let alone touch it with hands that have been working longer than half an hour.

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Had some fun using the table attachment for the bandsaw, so I decided to keep going, and made a smaller, slightly more permanent table for the vise, to help line up smaller pieces, and saves me from having to measure most things under ~220mm/9"
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Sadly had some chatter, as the setup wasn't nearly rigid enough for what i wanted to do, and the surface looks absolutely terrible. Still debating sanding or stoning it.

I can also use small clamps to fixture short material (that would otherwise not be long enough to span between the blade, and vise) directly to the fence, which I had problems with in the past
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It is mounted to the cast iron frame with some larger screws, and the main platin is bolted to a beefy support with 6 m6 screws
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Since it worked so well, I decided to also sink some pockets into the big vertical table, and add 2 more scales, to help with setting up the fence

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If they look crooked, it's because they are. Well, to the side at least, as they are referenced to the back edge (in these picture the top edge) as I milled the back edge to be square with the blade
 
James Mayo said:
This is exciting. I’m really interested in this steel. Have you been using it?
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Great to hear from you and I have! Love the steel so far, grinds well, holds a great edge and takes a nice etch. Pushing it around 61-62rc with a HT that’s a blend of the optimized toughness and edge retention mandates. I think users are going to really appreciate this steel.
 
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