Thread: Couple more newbie honing questions

So I am about to pull the trigger on some hones, a swaty, a DD, a dragon tongue, and then either a Norton set (220-8k) or a Shapton set (1k-8k) and the choice will come down to finance. So please, no advice there.

However, I will need to lap my stuff. Would it be possible, in theory, to buy a really really nice 1 inch end mill and lap it on the Mill with an ultra high spindle speed and crawling feed rate? If that is possible, anyone know what grade of steel wouldn't be ruined by a hone? Also, would that milled surface be shaveable, or just flat (ie. need sanding)?

Thanks!
Karl

i'm moving the thread to the honing section where you'll get better responses.

Karl you sorta lost me on this one Brother...

Are you saying you want to lap the hones using a milling machine????
instead of a minute or so on a DMT or GDLP etc:...

What about excessive wear????
or am I missing something????

Originally Posted by gugi

i'm moving the thread to the honing section where you'll get better responses.

I'm so glad you did . . . I thought this one was going to fall on my team!


Glen, its all yours!

Glen- the DD and Swaty I'm looking at are both chipped, as many are, and I was thinking of just flattening them all the way down. Thankfully, I posted here first instead of trying first. Now that I see your shocked reaction, can you explain what would cause excessive wear?

Also, here is my reasoning, if it helps. I would level one side somewhat arbitrarily, using .01 inch increments, with as little material removal as possible, till there are consistant machining marks. Then I would proceed another .005 inches into the material. This will be the base (the stamped side of the swaty, the coarse side of the DD). From then on, forever, all I would have to do is put the base side down on parallel bars in the mill, and make passes at .001 inch increments until there are consistent machining marks. Now I have a hone with two sides parallel and flat to within .001 inch. This is the same tolerance that is on the DMT, but with the added benefit that when I lay the stone on the table, it is flat and almost perfectly level. I would maybe do this to the Nortons and Dragon tongue. If I got the Shaptons I would have Howard lap them for me. I can't really afford the DGLP, and wouldn't want to stuff those beauties up on a mill (glass doesn't mill well).

Chips are not necessarily a problem. A lot of my old barber hones have chips around the edges. Just avoid them while honing, no big deal. No need to grind the entire hone down past the chips.

I've worked on end mills before and I don't think that would work, you could try it, but i'd be afraid of cracking the hone. Since that's mosty for removing steel, I don't know how a rock would fair on the mill. Those rocks are relatively soft, it's not granite, they're very pouros. I took a angle grinder to a Chinese 12k, it just broke apart. They need to be kept wet while lapping, no oil, which mills drip oil all the time, well some do...I know it's different. I'm a X gear head myself, and fabricator. You certainly won't mess up the end mill, but you may break your stone. If I can suggest some wet sandpaper, around 220g to start, work your way to 1000 grit on a piece of tile or glass...Leave the mill to the aluminum....
Good Luck, Rich

OK I see where you are going with it, and yes I think it will work in theory....

You don't need the GDLP for the Shapton's, a DMT 325 does just fine at a fraction of the cost, perhaps not as easily, but just as good....

I guess you would have to try the mill to see what happens, the only thing I would ask myself is how much stress is going to be put on the hone???? (like Zib of the fast fingers mentions above)
I would for sure try it on a cheap one first, but I am sure you are way ahead of me on that...
You could actually do the pencil grid lines before using the mill also, to see how that works out....

I wonder about smoothness too, but hey it can't be worse then the Norton lapping plate leaves, and I know that works

I will be following this one to see yer outcome

Not sure of the brand. It'll be a big old bench mill using a 1 inch endmill, probably carbide tipped. Cracking would be a problem if your feed rate was too high, spindle speed too low, or cut depth too deep. I would basically crank it up to several thousand rpm, feed at like 5 in per min, and cut only a hundredth at a time. those are my initial estimates. I have no experience here, but I know lapidaries do a similar thing with gem stones. This seems like it will take a while, so I may be able to get it on a Prolight 1000 CNC mill, but I will need to negotiate a deal to get time on that baby and I don't know if it's heavy duty enough.

This one will be a while I think. Now that I see some of the responses I am wary of this. I might try and find a shot ebay hone to try it on first. Or a Zeepk willing to donate itself to science lol. I'm not sure when I will be able to get in to use the mill again because it belongs to the school, and currently we are out of school. If the responses were: YES GREAT IDEA! I would have found a way. But for now I think I'll sand em to see what something should feel like, then when school comes back, maybe I'll grab a cheap hone and go experiment. Glen- you will recall me asking a lot about scale designs and stuff... They are ready to go, I just have to wait til the end of summer. My old teacher has given me access to the laser cutter/engraver! But that is locked up til September.