Thread: Soaked Naniwa too long. Any recovery?

Originally Posted by Grazor

Wouldn't have thought 12 hours in water would affect them that much unless they got too hot while drying. Being synthetic, they should be reasonably easy to lap flat again. I would pick fishing over honing any day of the week too, hope you caught something.

It is slight, but the stones don't have the same feel or sound the same. We did catch a few fish but they just happened to bite. It was a great fishing day with the youngsters, I spent more time untangling fishing line and baiting hooks, would gladly trade two ss stones for that time

Originally Posted by jwy77

It is slight, but the stones don't have the same feel or sound the same. We did catch a few fish but they just happened to bite. It was a great fishing day with the youngsters, I spent more time untangling fishing line and baiting hooks, would gladly trade two ss stones for that time

In 20 years time you will gladly trade every hone and stone you have to get that moment back with your children. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Synthetic stones do not stay flat no matter what you do, at least mine don’t. Every time I grit lap them, which is not often they are not perfectly flat. I lap all my synthetic to clean, before I put them up to dry and before each use after a quick dunk and they are never the same flatness. You can see a color difference.

But it really does not matter, a stone does not have to be perfectly flat to hone a flat edge, it will just ride on the high spots, not as efficient but will work just fine.

Many of the old school Japanese knife honers, do not lap their stones flat, it wastes too much stone. They just work on the high spots to wear the stone evenly.

The Super Stones are really more of a splash and go stone, a quick dunk and lap and they are ready to go. I use a squirt bottle and a plastic tray to catch the water and swarf and keep a film of water on the face of the stone. Works much better than a spray bottle.

Super Stones also load up faster and need more lapping to remove the swarf, so a quick lap with a 325 or 400 diamond plate keeps them reasonably flat.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Synthetic stones do not stay flat no matter what you do, at least mine don’t. Every time I grit lap them, which is not often they are not perfectly flat. I lap all my synthetic to clean, before I put them up to dry and before each use after a quick dunk and they are never the same flatness. You can see a color difference.

But it really does not matter, a stone does not have to be perfectly flat to hone a flat edge, it will just ride on the high spots, not as efficient but will work just fine.

Many of the old school Japanese knife honers, do not lap their stones flat, it wastes too much stone. They just work on the high spots to wear the stone evenly.

The Super Stones are really more of a splash and go stone, a quick dunk and lap and they are ready to go. I use a squirt bottle and a plastic tray to catch the water and swarf and keep a film of water on the face of the stone. Works much better than a spray bottle.

Super Stones also load up faster and need more lapping to remove the swarf, so a quick lap with a 325 or 400 diamond plate keeps them reasonably flat.

+1 to all of the above, with special emphasis on the bolded text. There was a thread on here years ago with an interview with a very experienced aged Japanese honer. His method was exactly as stated above. No lapping, just work the high spots as you went to gain flatness.

I've also said many times, no old barber whose brains I used to pick relentlessly back in the 1980s ever mentioned flattening their hones. OTOH, I flatten mine but as stated above, none stay flat with one exception. My Norton 4 & 8 single grit only need flattening from use. The environment does not affect them. Must be the binder, they apparently are not polymer. As far as the leaving the superstones soaking .......... Any day of fishing is better than a good day of work.

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.