Thread: How does Lapping actually work?

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

Lapping does two things.
The flat profile is important when switching from hone to hone to hone.
If all hones dished at the same rate this would be almost unnecessary
but they do not wear at the same rate so lapping can help. In my limited
experience hones wear wrong. The coarse hones wear faster and
then the finer hones cannot touch the bevel at the edge. A 10k or
finer hone with a little sway back will produce a nice micro bevel.

This is of course a very good point. The large radius arc, will create a slight convex to the razors edge bevel. When put against a flat stone, it should become noticable under magnification at least. until you wind up re-setting the bevel on the next hone, creating more work & in a staged manner removing more metal than necessary.

When I wrote my post I was more thinking along the lines of slurry to finish, then future touch ups on the same stone. Basically maintaining the same convex edge.





If you dont want to play with that dished stone, I might be interested in experimenting on it. On second thought, probably not. I have learned though here that doing a coti-only sounds like a long involved process. Let alone learning and starting a coti progression on a dished stone, sounds like heck to troubleshoot when I dont have the stone experience, or means to check how the bevel is going for a razor level edge. Means I could only confirm it works, not that it dont work. Only way I could confirm it dont work is over a course of years. And I havent even touched on the battle to consistently lap out a dish. :/ too much for me.