Thread: Flattening Glass Plate....

You guys are overkilling things. Plate glass is flat, if you are honing properly...your blade will never know if the stone or whatever you are using is a few hundredths off. Pressure and "feel" is what you should be worrying about...

That is not true in many cases. I have had pieces of glass that look like motocross whoops. They need to be at least fairly uniform and without abrupt dips and/or twists or you will really mess up a razor. If it ever gets taken to a flat stone or film and flat glass plate afterward there will be a lot of work to do.

Originally Posted by eKretz

That is not true in many cases. I have had pieces of glass that look like motocross whoops. They need to be at least fairly uniform and without abrupt dips and/or twists or you will really mess up a razor. If it ever gets taken to a flat stone or film and flat glass plate afterward there will be a lot of work to do.

I agree. As I described in my post, several of the glass plates were basically ok and required very little lapping to flatness. A few however were really quite bad and required about a half hour of work getting the glass surface reasonably flat. Seems to make sense to me that trying to hone on a surface that is not flat is not a good idea. I'm not talking about a surface that is "...a few hundredths of an inch" out of being flat, but a surface that you can visibly see "hills and valleys" with the naked eye. I've certainly seen some glass plates that have visible hills and valleys.

What's nice about using glass or ceramic plates and lapping films, is that once you flatten the plate(s) you do not need to re-flatten them since they won't change in terms of flatness with use, unlike manmade and natural stones. I've picked out a particularly nice flattened glass plate of the ones I've processed and basically use that one with both adhesive and non-adhesive films for honing. I could get by with just that one glass plate, but, as you would expect I have about a dozen glass plates..... What can I say... I'm weak.

If you have a lapping plate, why wouldn't you just put the lapping film on the back of it?

Originally Posted by edhewitt

If you have a lapping plate, who wouldn't you just put the lapping film on the back of it?

He-he... of course you could, as long as you made sure that the backside was clean. What's nice about the glass plate, or ceramic plate, is that is is dedicated to use with the films. If you use the lapping plate for other uses, you may have to stop a honing progression in order to use the plate to flatten a stone or lap a knife, or whatever.

If you really wanted to, you could use the surface of an iPad as a substrate for the lapping film..... it seems reasonably flat to me. But, again, if you had plans to use the iPad at the same time as you wanted to use it with lapping film, you have a problem. I think it better to have a dedicated flat surface to use with lapping film.

I agree Shooter. Are we talking about wet shaving or lenses for the Hubble? Abe Lincoln was probably in office when my best shaving razor was made. I enjoy the history and use of straight razors, but these guys need to get a life.

Have you ever even lapped a piece of glass to use for lapping film? Have you even checked a few to see if they were reasonably flat? I thought not. Maybe you should limit your utterances to subjects you actually have experience with rather than insults to people you don't even know.

Originally Posted by eKretz

Have you ever even lapped a piece of glass to use for lapping film? Have you even checked a few to see if they were reasonably flat? I thought not. Maybe you should limit your utterances to subjects you actually have experience with rather than insults to people you don't even know.

You sir are funny & you gave me a chuckle. Thank you My first impulse was to put you in check with your vast knowledge of honing, but then I would be bringing myself to your level.

Remember, for everyone you THINK you are smarter than...there are 10 who are smarter & more experienced than you.

Seriously? First, no one is claiming to be smarter than anyone here except I guess you. Knowing something that someone else doesn't does not make a person any smarter than any other, only more well informed. There is a big difference between intelligence and knowledge.

Second, your vast self-proclaimed knowledge of honing qualifies you as an expert on every piece of glass ever made also? If you honestly think that all glass, including the aforementioned glass tiles from big box hardware stores are flat enough to hone razors on without being lapped/flattened you should really go buy some and see for yourself. I'm telling you, they aren't. I've bought several. It's about half and half judging from the ones I've gotten, which is similar to what the OP found. If you guys want to hone on hilly surfaces go for it, I'll stick with flat. Just don't go proclaiming that all glass is flat enough for honing when it isn't so, for newbs' sake. Plate glass cut from larger sheets MAY be better, but that's not the point. The point is, check and flatten if necessary. A few hundredths of an inch - this is .030" BTW - is WAY farther out of flat than I would ever consider acceptable. By an order of magnitude.

Third, I don't care who you are or what you may or may not know, there's no call to be insulting here for any reason. Defending that behavior is as bad as participating in it, IMO.

To the newbs who may be reading this, the takeaway from all of this would be to check your honing surface before blindly believing what anyone may say, one way or the other.

If you ever wish to have any honing lessons or anything to do with a straight razor, please contact me.