Thread: Soaked Naniwa too long. Any recovery?

I have never done what you did, but I will speculate that it may be beneficial to wait until the hones are fully (mostly) dry BEFORE lapping them. Otherwise you may find that your newly lapped hones still are not flat after they have dried more.

You will find that they do best if you treat them in the same manner each time. Either lap them after you have finished honing, or lap them after they've been wetted but before honing or whatever. Just be consistent in your approach.

Oh, and in the future remove all hones before fishing!

I am going to be the dissenting voice in the wilderness

I have never left mine for 12 hours, but 6 easily, I doubt you did any harm, let me give you some advice, the SS hones will swell and come out of flat just from wetting them and drying them...

I have never Grid lapped mine since the very first time, as soon as I learned that you could chase flatness with them right down the drain
Just do a few figure 8's before each razor with your lapping plate and start honing..

Like Jimmy and Marty already mentioned "Flatness is highly exaggerated" it is really more about SMOOTH rather then dead even flat..


Don't sweat it, lap them and hone on

I was under the impression you didn't need to "soak" Naniwa's, a few sprays of water and you were good to go....now soaking the Norton's I'd definitely heard of??

it depends on the permeability of the stone. The more permeable stones need to be soaked like the Norton 1K and 4K while the high grits do not. Soaking won't do much because they either don't absorb water at all or do so very slowly.

If you tried honing on something like the Norton 1K without soaking they would just absorb the water so fast you couldn't apply it fast enough. After soaking that's not the case.

I have noticed with synthetics, that they develop a kind of “skin” after drying and re wetting. I see it when I give a lite lap after a dunk, the color change I talked about earlier, just a bit darker.

It may be me, but on my 12k Super Stone, the only SS that I regularly use it does seem to affect the cutting ability of the stone, just a bit, lower grit stones, not so much, I lap them quickly anyway.

I typically use a 600 grit plate to pre hone lap, but have used, a now worn 325 -1200 plate with pretty much the same effect, just a few laps to remove the skin and or swarf.

I lap when done to remove swarf and load up, I like to keep my stones clean and free of contamination of other grits. I am kind of obsessive of swarf cleanliness and cross grit contamination. When going to the finish stones I rinse the work area, the razor and wash my hands. I work next to a sink, so it takes but a second and it can’t hurt.

Originally Posted by Phrank

I was under the impression you didn't need to "soak" Naniwa's, a few sprays of water and you were good to go....now soaking the Norton's I'd definitely heard of??

IIRC the naniwa SS was recommended to be soaked for 5 to 15 minutes, and no more than that. Guys over here found that splash and go worked. The Norton combo has to be soaked for 15 minutes, but the single grits only the 1k, and 4k need to be soaked, not the 8k.

Before

After


This is after running 400 grit wet/dry sand paper over the stones.

I have the naniwa SS stones 1-3-5-8-12K and never soaked them. I simply spray with water until the water stands on the stone then hone. when finished honing i clean with the dmt and let air dry for a day or so. I then store in a dry place. When i need to ck for flatness i use wet dry and lay the wet dry on a flat surface like the granite counter top and use water and flatten that way. As some has already stated they don't have to be perfectly flat.

Wet & Dry works fine, but can be a pain to use, make sure to bevel or round the edges.

A good Diamond plate will make your life much easier and are relatively inexpensive now.

Check Chef Knives to Go, for a good inexpensive plate, a 400-1k combo for 35 bucks. They are nice plates for lapping and maintaining hones. And it is great for sharpening knives and tools.