Thread: prep for frist use for The Natural Finishing Stone - 12,000 Grit is quarried in China

Ok, so after reading the lapping section in the wiki, I know I can do my nortons myself. However, I'm worried it will cost more to buy the stuff to do my chineese stone and my Swaty or spend hours doing them. Is there an alternative? Should I just buy a better finisher or does someone lapps these things? or does the lapping stones speed up the process? thanks.

For the Chineese you can start with some 160-180 grit paper and work up to ~400, it will take some time, but when you're done it will be a long time til you need to lap it again.

The Swaty isn't closa as hard as the Chineese to lap, you should do fine with 320 or 400 grit paper.

Whenever you re wandering if you need to lap a new stone before the first honing, do it. In most cases it's not time consuming, and, it will save you much effort restoring the damage you might have cost in your razor or knife or whatever you re honing. For higher grit stones, you can start from 60 grit sandpapers or lapping stones, and and after that you can go up to 600. I don't think there will be a need for 60 grit abrasive to be used for a new stone, only if there are really deep scratches or cavities.

1) The swaty may not need lapped.
2) The other stones definately do
3) 12k is a very generous estimate on that stone, but you can still get nice edges off of it.
4) Lock the 12k in a drawer until you get good shaves off of your norton 8k.


This has been a Slartibartfast production.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

1) The swaty may not need lapped.
2) The other stones definately do
3) 12k is a very generous estimate on that stone, but you can still get nice edges off of it.
4) Lock the 12k in a drawer until you get good shaves off of your norton 8k.
This has been a Slartibartfast production.

I was already thinking the swaty needed it. it was brand new in the original box. Yeah, i got lucky and prob paid too much for it. Anyway it has a rough look with minor pits and things of that nature. So maybe it want new.. In any event, can i use the swaty in place of the 12k? If not, I'll prob just get something else.