Thread: Thanks giving lap dance.

Hey gents, Happy Thanksgiving eh!
it's the Canadian one today and I was all turkey'd out and out for a drive with the misses.
Saw a garage sale in a little town west of home and poked around.
Grabbed the below for $10.00. A lovely lapping block designed for cylinder end facing on diesels. Figured it'd be perfect for lapping my hones, and anyone else's nearby.
I tested it on a norton pike JB8 and the surface rust on the lapping block has been coming off uniformly.
Figure it was designed for oil use, but I will stay with water.
Cheers.

I hope they sold it with a lot of elbow grease as well.

Originally Posted by MikeB52

Thanks giving lap dance.

If someone was giving me a lap dance, I'd also be giving thanks!! :-D

Hope yours was a happy holiday.

You could lap an anvil with that thing!

Looks great Mike & different.



,,,,P.S. ,,,thanks for the heads up on Thanksgiving,,,,gotta go wish the Canadians well,,,,

I'm sure you already realize this but those lapping plates need a loose grit of some variety in order to work. Out of curiosity what are you using?

Nope, didn't know that. The guy I got it from just said use oil and a circular stroke.
I have some sandblast media called white lightning #2040 I could try.
How do you apply it to the bed, spread some evenly dry or?
Thanks for the heads up, and reply.

Use a figure "8" stroke to allow the same pressure on all sides of the stone. Or, alternatively, you can do a "W" and rotate the hone a few degrees ( 30° to 45°) after each back and forth strokes. Try to cover the whole lapping plate each time you use it. It does wear a bit also. the iron holds the grit and your stone is abraded. the cuts are to allow swarf to be removed from the surface.
I found that some lapidary stores carry many different grades of aluminum oxide grits. I found 220 grit to work well for me. You will be best off to mix the grits with a soap and make a thick slurry. Oil will not do your hones any good at all.
I would suppose, after thinking about it as I write that a gel or glycerin would work or gelatin. they would wash out. A tallow soap would work also.
Just thinkin' aloud..clickety click.
~Richard

Richard has given you some good guidelines, but I would suggest you use silicon carbide abrasive rather than aluminum oxide. I would probably try to make a solution of dish soap, water and abrasive for the purposes of lapping honing stones. You can use any grit really, but Richard's suggestion of 220 is probably perfect. The abrasive will break down and become finer as you use it, so you won't need to worry about it being too coarse. You'll need to splash on a little more every time you lap, and it would be a good idea to rinse and dry the plate between uses. Make sure to let your hone run slightly off the outside edges of the plate when lapping, and I'd use the figure 8 pattern in several quadrants. In other words for your first lapping session you might do your figure 8's in the top left corner. Next session in the top right, next session in the middle left, then middle right, lower left, lower right, back to top left, etc...this will keep the plate flat as long as possible. When it needs to be refreshed take it to a machine shop and have them surface grind it. (This should take years before it needs to be ground).

Thanks for the suggested options gentlemen, I value the experiences of others and always appreciate hearing from thems that know..
Will mix up a slurry this weekend and try it out on a 152 carborundum barber hone I have that still isn't quite flat to the edges and post my results..
Cheers..