Thread: These just came in!

Is ther much concern of grit contamination in hones in general? Say you used a 1000 grit synthetic to lap a finer stone say 8000. I have a DMT XX coarse for lapping some of my stones I use for knives. I know some guys use a flattening stone, sand paper, or another stone to lap, just wondering if you have noticed any odd random coarse scratches from wee bits of embedded particles from the coarser stone/sandpaper/DMT?

As for HAD, don't really have it bad, but I have wanted a couple natural stones for a while now, and I have no stones for finishing, or razors in general.

I will play with these for a while, then I will likely pick up a set on Naniwa stones bit by bit, as I figure things out.

Depends on the Hone in question, but yes cross contamination is a concern, in fact a probability..

There was a time in the past when using the next lower hone and lapping to crazy high grits was looked at as the correct way to do things, Scrubbing the hones with 3M green pads and running water was also part of the routine to cut down the cross contamination..
I did this religiously for a few years and 1000's of razors,, Used a 1k to lap the 4 k and a 4k to lap the 8k and the 8k to do the 16k etc: etc:
I finally stopped after I bought the Shapton 30k and the stupid expensive DGLP they sell to lap it.. It dawned on me the if the Hone with the highest proved grit available was designed to be lapped with a 325 Diamond Grit plate then everything else that was a lower grit would be fine too Haven't looked back since..

I do use different techniques and higher grit for Oil Stones and Barber Hones...

Wait a few minutes and somebody will be along to tell you that if you lap to a higher grit the stone performs better Personally I haven't found that to be true with Waterstones

Originally Posted by PierreR

Is ther much concern of grit contamination in hones in general? Say you used a 1000 grit synthetic to lap a finer stone say 8000. I have a DMT XX coarse for lapping some of my stones I use for knives. I know some guys use a flattening stone, sand paper, or another stone to lap, just wondering if you have noticed any odd random coarse scratches from wee bits of embedded particles from the coarser stone/sandpaper/DMT?

As for HAD, don't really have it bad, but I have wanted a couple natural stones for a while now, and I have no stones for finishing, or razors in general.

I will play with these for a while, then I will likely pick up a set on Naniwa stones bit by bit, as I figure things out.

I'd spend the extra buck and go for the Chosera variant of the Nanis when you choose to do so. AFAIK they use a different binding material and that could be the reason I like the feel of these better than the regular superstones.