Thread: From film to stones

What I do is first remove the previous stria honing on 1um then add the paper and do about 10 laps only to finish.

40 laps is a lot, also decrease your pressure to weight of the blade.

HF plates can be used but first must be broke in as the diamonds are not uniform.

A better cheap plate is the Chef Knives to Go 140 grit plate at 30 bucks, a great lapping plate or there is a guy on EBay that sells very nice 3X8 diamond plates up to 1K for about 15 -20 dollars, they are thin 1/8 in but very uniform in grit and distribution. The 1K is a nice bevel setter for repairs.

I know a guy who bevel sets on a well worn HF diamond plate, he can produce a very nice edge.

Stropping on Cerium Oxide on a 2mm craft foam paddle is also good, not as good as CBN, but good.

for the reccord: I have never used film so what I say is just a thought:

I would be most worried about grid contamination, some time ago it took me more then a month to figure out that the reason my edges were getting worse instead of better was because my strop was contaminated with coticule slurry.

another thought would be that you will be more likely to overhone on lapping film simply because you can only hone spine first, stropping with chromium oxide afterwards will probably solve this problem

Originally Posted by Bram

for the reccord: I have never used film so what I say is just a thought:

I would be most worried about grid contamination, some time ago it took me more then a month to figure out that the reason my edges were getting worse instead of better was because my strop was contaminated with coticule slurry.

another thought would be that you will be more likely to overhone on lapping film simply because you can only hone spine first, stropping with chromium oxide afterwards will probably solve this problem

Spine first? I've been leading with the edge. I have to say that's the first I've heard of leading with the spine only on films.

Also, great suggestion about contamination.

Originally Posted by PR357

Spine first? I've been leading with the edge. I have to say that's the first I've heard of leading with the spine only on films.

Also, great suggestion about contamination.

Read his first sentence, er I mean disclaimer. Yeah, film works fine edge first.

Bram, once you squeegee the water from between the plate and film the film is well stuck to the plate.

You can do anything on film that you can with a stone, circles, half laps, X strokes. The film will not come off until you pull it off or it dries out.

It is a bit of a hassle, but it does work well and grits go to about 60k equivalent, though I prefer the 1um about 16k equivalent.

There are many threads and good videos on its use. It is just another tool, works well on very hard blades.

As said I often use a combination or just to finish. I did recently get a Gokuymo 20k that produce a similar edge to .3um film, without hassle, splash and go.

Any combination of stones that leads to a proper shaving edge is fine.

I use all sorts of progressions with the same outcome, a shave ready razor!


My favorites are a 1k/3k/Karasu Suita progession that I use before any finisher. Or 1k to coticule slurry, then finish either with the coticule or whatever else I feel like using.