Thread: Buying Chinese 12K in Europe?

Originally Posted by SharpMan

Yes, I understand it is a natural stone, but they get flattened a bit
before they are sold.

Those little white dots, I have had that with other stone when I used loose
grit or sometimes sandpaper to flatten them. They would embed themselves
and it would take about an hour with a poor diamond plate to create new layer.
Then these spots would disappear.

You could be right though and it be natural, but it looks like somebody used a
brush with some white paint, does not look natural to me.

Sharpman

It is natural, the lines go all the way through the stone.

These chinese stones are that hard that I can't imagine how anything could get imbedded in them. They are solid and not porous stones.

[QUOTE=Lesslemming;810710]Indeed it does come flat, but the performance of the C12k is greatly improved by polishing the surface.
This is hard work! You buy a stone for 25€ and have to work on it for like 60€ (in life-time).

I recommand either lapping film for the final polish, or rubbing the C12k under running water against some very hard and quite fine stone.
I found the BBW works miracles on the C12k.

what do you recommend for lapping a C12k? I have one that I got really cheap but the both surface are still rough and Im having a hard time to lap it 'cos they're hard stone. and Im on a budget & dont have a lapping stone. I only have a few natural stones & 250,350,600grits

Hello sigit;

oh that´s a tough quest.
I would recommend a couple (!) of sheets of wet dry sandpaper.
You will wear these out quickly.

Hopefully your stone is just a little rough, and not thoroughly unfinished.
If so, you might get along with 120, 320, 400, 600 and the finest w/d sandpaper you can find
and a loooot of patience. If it is completely unfinished I would not know what to do.
Maybe contact a stone carver or a professional stonecutter. Sometimes these have quite good machines for flattening stones
that could be used to bring your Chinese stone into shape

Got my 8x3" C12K today and it's amazing, at least the first shave off it was really good!
I required a good 90-minute lapping session with the DMT8C, which was expected.
Really smooth shave, and it was sharp enough to make ATG really effortless. Couldn't be happier.

Here's todays SOTD picture with it:


By blix72 at 2011-07-15

Originally Posted by Blix

Got my 8x3" C12K today and it's amazing, at least the first shave off it was really good!
I required a good 90-minute lapping session with the DMT8C, which was expected.
Really smooth shave, and it was sharp enough to make ATG really effortless. Couldn't be happier.

Here's todays SOTD picture with it:


By blix72 at 2011-07-15

Congratulations with your nice stone. Please post a closeup.

How does the stone feel?

Nice photography skills mate.

Sharpman

Thank you, I'll post some more pictures tomorrow.
It feels very good, and didn't feel like you have to do 100+ laps to make it work. For that razor I first made a slurry with the slurry stone it came with, did around 15-20 laps, then diluted and 15-20 more, went more by feel than count really, and finished with around 20-25 laps with clear water.
50/100 laps on linen/leather and it was good to go

Very nice picture and setup!

Your stone looks good. I can clearly see scratches from the diamond hone on the surface,
but since you got the results you wanted, maybe that means the surface of the C12k doesn´t need to be perfect.


Btw. I remember after a good bevelset and a finish up to 8.000 JIS the C12k does indeed not need so many laps

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

Very nice picture and setup!

Your stone looks good. I can clearly see scratches from the diamond hone on the surface,
but since you got the results you wanted, maybe that means the surface of the C12k doesn´t need to be perfect.


Btw. I remember after a good bevelset and a finish up to 8.000 JIS the C12k does indeed not need so many laps

Yeah there's 4-5 scratches still, but I plan top spend some more time with the BBW on it, after the DMT 325, I used 400 w/d-paper and 1200 (what I had) for 15 minutes or something and around the same with the BBW side of my coti.

Ah, so you did finish the surface with another fine stone!
I thought you used it right away after lapping it with the DMT 325