small review: flattening hard hones relativly easy and cheap
problem:
good quality diamond plates like atomas are not a bargain. if you have/buy hard hones that are also concave/need a lot of lapping, the plates are unnecessarily worn out. personally i don t like sic powder very much because it s not only lapping your hone but also the glass/granite/whatever plate you lap on.
i tried various cheap diamond plates for heavy lapping. i don t know if i am allowed to link to ebay here, so:
i can NOT recomment the cheap 400/1000 grid combination plates. mine lost diamonds as fast as a dog his hair in summer. plus: it was not flat but to thick to back it up with something straight.
i can recommend the very cheap THIN diamond plates from china that you ll find f.e. on ebay usa. they are around $3-5 a piece including shipping. look for the ad that sells them with grid from 80-3000.
they are really thin so it worksif you use them with a piece of floatglass as backup to get them straight. as i said, the grid rating starts at 80, so they bite! i lapped several hard hones that where really concave, doing the flattening with the cheap plates, 80/150/240. they hold their diamonds quite good.
once "flat" i switched to atomas.
works good and prolongs the life of the atomas/whatever expensive plate you use or prepares the hones for finishing on w/d sandpaper.
thank you and have a good one