Thread: Lapping synthetic stones with wet/dry sandpaper

I think we've all done it at one point or another. Lapping a hone with sand paper won't hurt it, it's how I got all of mine flat and prepped for honing be they natural or Synthetic . Worst case scenario you actually do get a tiny bit of sand paper material stuck on your hone. Get it under running water and scrub it with your hand. The grit is loose so it should dislodge itself easily. The only thing I don't use sandpaper on is really hard stones like Arkansas stones. They're a monster unto themselves, sand paper just gets worn out too fast and even loose grit SiC powder has a hard time with them.

But as far as particulate embedding in the stone? Not really an issue. Cost/benefit is a more realistic problem. After spending enough money on sandpaper to have purchased a DMT I finally caved and purchased a diamond plate to cut my losses. But I was also going through a natural hone kick and burning through a lot of paper on fairly hard stones. If you're only gonna get a single synthetic set and maintain your blades with those, you can probably justify using sand paper because you won't run through it too quick just keeping a few hones in flat.

If you are just maintaining hones and not ‘correcting’ the past sins of others, sandpaper will work fine. I have a 5-stone synth sequence, only 3 of which are regularly used, and a set of sandpapers will refinish them many times.

When I do a periodic flattening of the stones from razor wear, I usually start at 320 grit, usually worn a bit. This 320 grit paper bears the bulk of the wear, all the finer grits, up to 2k for fine finishers is simply removing the last grit’s scratches so the finer papers don’t wear that much. I use them until they’re worn out. Also never had an issue with ‘embedded’ grit.

Cheers, Steve