Thread: Lapping a Barber Hone

I have a Reliance Barber hone with a grey and brown sides. The description indicates that the grey side is silicon carbide. This grey needs lapping. I was wondering if I could use silicon carbide lapping compound and a glass plate (i.e. using silicon carbide to lap silicon carbide)?
www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=33017&cat=1,43072
Another alternative is a diamond stone (1200 grit) www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=33005&cat=1,43072
Any ideas?

600 grit wet/dry sandpaper on your countertop. Do figure 8's or X's.

I lap about 20 stones every week and I use a DMT Coarse continuous diamond in the kitchen sink with a warm stream of water carrying away the swarf. The DMT is a quality tool and will give you consistent results for years.

Sorry - Newbie alert

What is Lapping?

thanks

Originally Posted by 250316

Sorry - Newbie alert

What is Lapping?

thanks

Pete-
Lapping a hone is nothing more than sanding/grinding down the honing surface to insure that it is perfectly flat prior to taking the razor to it. It can be accomplished using wet/dry sandpaper on a sheet of glass or marble or counter top (as long as it's perfectly flat), or a 'lapping stone', or another hone rubbed face to face or, evidently, a 'lapping compound', which is a new one to me.

-hope this helps

-whatever

-Lou

So do I stick the wet/dry to the surface and rub the hone over it or rub the wet/dry over the hone?
I'm guessing there is actually a difference. Does it matter?

Stick the wet and dry on something flat like a piece of glass, tile, I've even used concrete/pavement at a push. There used to be granite dump near me and I have used polished/faced granite from there in the past.

Originally Posted by mparker762

600 grit wet/dry sandpaper on your countertop. Do figure 8's or X's.

This tends to embed grit on the surface of my Norton 4k/8k, do you run into this at all?

I water it while lapping and scrub under running water with fine steel wool when i'm done, but there are always a couple embedded pieces of grit that I have to carve out of the stone with an x-acto knife. Do you have any ideas how I can prevent / fix this problem?

Originally Posted by johnny_angel

This tends to embed grit on the surface of my Norton 4k/8k, do you run into this at all?

I water it while lapping and scrub under running water with fine steel wool when i'm done, but there are always a couple embedded pieces of grit that I have to carve out of the stone with an x-acto knife. Do you have any ideas how I can prevent / fix this problem?

Just to confirm, are you sure you're using Wet/Dry sandpaper?

-whatever

-Lou

Originally Posted by johnny_angel

This tends to embed grit on the surface of my Norton 4k/8k, do you run into this at all?

Only the first one or two times I did it. This seems to be a reasonably common occurrence for new nortons judging by the comments on this forum. I don't know if there's a sealant on the hone that is causing this or what. It's been a long time since this has happened to me.