Thread: A Discovery on lapping Shapton Pros and Naniwa Superstones YMMV

Originally Posted by kwigibocity

But what would happen (speaking of the Naniwa SS) if you were to lap it as such, let it dry fully, spritz it again and go to work...should you expect as flat a surface as before when it was lapped while somewhat saturated?

I don't know. I have thought about that but I haven't checked with a grid and a plate. Some things are better left unknown. All I know is that the feel of the razor on the freshly lapped stone is better to me than if it is not lapped. I usually do two or three razors at a time since I'm lapping before every session. I also lap swarf off during the session if it builds .... and it does... I don't draw a grid for that but note the color of the surface. As I said in the OP, I'm anal about lapping so what I'm doing may or may not be necessary but it works for me.

Not quite the same technique but I find the same results to be true..
The Naniwa SS especially benefit from this, the Shapton GS also but not as noticable...

Start the process, fill sink or water pond with clean clear water drop in 1k stone.
Set up honing area get razors ready to hone (for me that means tape) get me ready to hone...

Take out 1k, and drop in next stone, do 10 figure 8's with lapping plate reversing stone after 5... Hone on that stone, do 10 figure 8's and set stone to dry.... Take next stone out of water, and repeat process by putting the following stone in water... Continue through entire honing progression leaving clean dry stones to put away ... OCD much???

kwigibocity,

Re: Naninwas keeping their flatness after drying & wetting:

Not on my experience; I find that the Naniwas need flattening every time I use them

After a while, it usually doesn;t take too long to flatten.

Have fun !

regards

Russ

I do love the performance of the super stones, but they seem to want for lapping more than any other hone I've tried, and I've tried far, far too many.

One other thing I run into, more so with the 5k and above but especially with the 12k, is that a line of the honing plane running parallel and nearly adjacent to the long edges gathers swarf and gets rough much quicker than the rest of the hone. I can feel the roughness by passing my finger over the surface, so surely it'll affect things on the blade, and only lapping fixes it...I've tried to rub with soft scouring pads to just take out that swarf and it works but the surface still doesn't feel as it did when it was prettier. Never had this happen with a harder waterstone.

Originally Posted by kwigibocity

I do love the performance of the super stones, but they seem to want for lapping more than any other hone I've tried, and I've tried far, far too many.

One other thing I run into, more so with the 5k and above but especially with the 12k, is that a line of the honing plane running parallel and nearly adjacent to the long edges gathers swarf and gets rough much quicker than the rest of the hone. I can feel the roughness by passing my finger over the surface, so surely it'll affect things on the blade, and only lapping fixes it...I've tried to rub with soft scouring pads to just take out that swarf and it works but the surface still doesn't feel as it did when it was prettier. Never had this happen with a harder waterstone.

My 5k shows swarf relatively quickly while my 3k doesn't load up near as fast. I don't know how to account for that. I haven't encountered that roughness issue that you describe but I lap the swarf off often in the midst of a honing session so maybe I would have run into it if I didn't or I just haven't noticed it.

I think using an arkansas as Glen suggested or an iyo as I do or something else as a scrubber when things get dirty is a nice quick easy way. You dont have to pick up the hone or mess with the plate. My plate is in a stone holder and I found myself postponing if I had to reset everything for full lapping mode.

Since I started razor honing I have refined and revamped my whoule approach in several ways. Using the scrubber(neither rubber or slurry in the proper sense because I rinse the milk when i dont want it) is one of the big ones as I used to let things get quite loaded and only removed what would wash off with a bit of finger rubbing ;always a lot of gray left behind.

iirc what Blaireau told me the polymer will always aquire a slightly new form so lapping/ drying and later rewetting would not necessarily cause it to return to its former flatness

I hone standing up directly in front of the kitchen sink with the lapping plate sitting under the faucet ready to go. Refreshing the stone is quick and easy. When I'm removing swarf I just do a couple of swipes with the water running so I'm not removing much more than the swarf. I like honing standing up because my arm hangs naturally from the shoulder and I am not in tension while doing the stroke. As far as the instability of the polymer, I wonder how much is really being removed with a pencil grid ? Probably very little.

Originally Posted by kevint

I think using an arkansas as Glen suggested or an iyo as I do or something else as a scrubber when things get dirty is a nice quick easy way. You dont have to pick up the hone or mess with the plate. My plate is in a stone holder and I found myself postponing if I had to reset everything for full lapping mode.

Yep works great, I use that for extended honing sessions, I never do more than 8 razors at a time but a quick little scrub down and rinse after every other razor keeps the stones clean and more important to me cutting the same for every razor (I do this is for every kind of stone not just the Synthetics)... I also shift the order of the razors as I move from stone to stone so one razor is never the first razor on the fresh clean stone every time...told you the OCD is not a bad thing in this hobby

Originally Posted by kevint

I think using an arkansas as Glen suggested or an iyo as I do or something else as a scrubber when things get dirty is a nice quick easy way. You dont have to pick up the hone or mess with the plate. My plate is in a stone holder and I found myself postponing if I had to reset everything for full lapping mode.

Since I started razor honing I have refined and revamped my whoule approach in several ways. Using the scrubber(neither rubber or slurry in the proper sense because I rinse the milk when i dont want it) is one of the big ones as I used to let things get quite loaded and only removed what would wash off with a bit of finger rubbing ;always a lot of gray left behind.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Yep works great, I use that for extended honing sessions, I never do more than 8 razors at a time but a quick little scrub down and rinse after every other razor keeps the stones clean and more important to me cutting the same for every razor (I do this is for every kind of stone not just the Synthetics)... I also shift the order of the razors as I move from stone to stone so one razor is never the first razor on the fresh clean stone every time...told you the OCD is not a bad thing in this hobby

So you two use a harder stone to sort of wipe down the shaptons while your using them to get rid of the swarf build up?

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Regarding the comments on fun vs work as far as honing goes, something that stuck with me from my college psychology courses that I've observed in myself and others lots of times-- They gave some monkeys a hasp latch to play with in an experiment. They monkeys liked the latches, and they would sit there an open and close them over and over. I guess it was the monkeys idea of a really good time. After a while, they put the latches on a trap door, and the monkeys had to open the latch to get their food, which was under the trap door. The monkeys didn't play with the latches any more after that. When you gotta do it to get your dinner its just not as much fun as it used to be...