Thread: Newbie question about chinese 12k stone

Newbie here. I have a razor that was properly honed, and I have a strop. I am thinking about buying a chinese 12k water stone. Do these need to be flattened before use? How can I check the stone when I get it to see if it needs to be flattened? While I am on the subject of hones, how about a swaty I could get on ebay?

They do have to be lapped. I just did mine using what Randy recommended. I do not remember the whole protocol from the top of my hear but it is on a recent post (I posted it myself). Basically you sand with different grit of sandpaper. Not sure about Swaty hones, some people here love them. To touch up my razors I have been using diamond spray, at least for now.

Al raz.

Most of the Chinese 12000 stones need to be lapped according to members here. Lapping can be done with a diamond stone (preferred, if you have the bucks). Lapping can also be done with sandpaper on a flat tile or sheet of plate glass. Start with a 300 grit paper, move up eventually to a 1000 grit paper, best results if the papers are wet/dry using water. Cover a side of the stone with a grid of pencil marks. Start to polish the stone on whatever medium you are using. Be very even, no pressure (just the weight of the stone) is best. When the lines are all gone you will have a lapped stone. While you are at it, round the edges of the stone just a little bit. The stone will be less likely to get chips, and if you drag a razor off the edge of the stone you will be less likely to hurt the razor.

yes, very few hones are not to be lapped - generally these are the diamond plates.
and yes, you need to lap the swaty, or at least check that it's flat.
I believe it's not impossible to use a non flat hone, but nobody would advice you to do that. It's also possible to shave with a fairly dull razor, but why suffer?

A Chinese 12k or Swaty are both great for touch up and both would probably benefit from lapping. You can get a good sharp edge from either.

You can double check the flattness of a stone with a straight edge. I use a steel rule & place the edge of it between opposing corners & down the length. If you hold it up to a light source no light should show between the two. You can get them already lapped ( there's a Polish seller on the bay, amongst others) but it never hurts to confirm.

Natural Polishing Water Stone (12,000 Grit) on eBay, also, Golenie i depilacja, Pozostałe, Kosmetyki i Perfumy (end time 24-Jan-09 18:22:48 GMT)

Hi Zeus,

I'm in the middel of learning how to hone my own razors with some good results and one thats not doing what I want right now but thats another story..I got a new Belgian blue in the process that needed to be lapped as well.

there is a great article on lapping in the wiki:
Hone Lapping 101 - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Good luck and happy honing..

Maarten

Originally Posted by kahunamoose

Most of the Chinese 12000 stones need to be lapped according to members here. Lapping can be done with a diamond stone (preferred, if you have the bucks). Lapping can also be done with sandpaper on a flat tile or sheet of plate glass. Start with a 300 grit paper, move up eventually to a 1000 grit paper, best results if the papers are wet/dry using water. Cover a side of the stone with a grid of pencil marks. Start to polish the stone on whatever medium you are using. Be very even, no pressure (just the weight of the stone) is best. When the lines are all gone you will have a lapped stone. While you are at it, round the edges of the stone just a little bit. The stone will be less likely to get chips, and if you drag a razor off the edge of the stone you will be less likely to hurt the razor.

Could you explain what you mean by wet/dry using water?

Originally Posted by Zeus

Could you explain what you mean by wet/dry using water?

or you could just read the wki in the post right before yours.... trust me it's worth while.

Originally Posted by Zeus

Could you explain what you mean by wet/dry using water?

Some sandpaper is manufactured as “wet.dry’. It is generally made better, and will not fall apart as quickly. It can be used dry, but is really meant to be used wet – just like it sounds, soak it with water. Don’t hesitate to be grinding your stone in a thin puddle of water on top of the sandpaper. Yes, it will be messy. But remember when you were a child – this means fun time. The water will lubricate everything a bit and it will provide a smoother finish, verses just scraping off chunks. Anything that grinds off the stone has the water to get lost in and spread out into an even surface. In the case of your Chinese 12000, the actual chemical composition of your stone is tiny grains of sand held together with a glue/base that is water soluble and will slowly dissolve, releasing the grains into a sludge that honemeisters call a slurry. Water on your wet/dry sandpaper will accelerate this breakdown – breakdown being good in this case! As the grains roll around in your slurry, they get even more aggressive in polishing down everything in their path. So the stone gets flattened out fairly quickly. Now take this one step further. If you can keep the slurry on the stone when you are actually honing, you will greatly accelerate the rate the stone will cut or polish your blade. You need it to cut fast, work up a slurry. You want the stone to cut slowly and finely, use the stone dry.