Thread: touch up lapping

when you are doing touch up lapping, do you do the "drawing a pencil" grid thing or do you just rup the hone on the lapping stone till it feels right? In other words, I assume it's good protocol to draw the pencil grid when the hone hasn't been lapped in a while, but if you touch up lap every few shaves are you going to scrape away too much of your hone if you do that?

Yeah, I go along with that.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

when you are doing touch up lapping, do you do the "drawing a pencil" grid thing or do you just rup the hone on the lapping stone till it feels right? In other words, I assume it's good protocol to draw the pencil grid when the hone hasn't been lapped in a while, but if you touch up lap every few shaves are you going to scrape away too much of your hone if you do that?

For me, it depends on the hardness of the hone and how many passes I made on it since the last lap.

The Norton 8K I have wears incredibly fast, and if I make more than 100 passes I have had it leave faint pencil marks after a trace lapping. When I used it more often, I lapped the darn thing before every honing session, just to be sure.

For barber hones, and even my coticule, they don't wear really fast, so I don't get lap-crazed.

And my Spyderco's? Forget it!

Then again, your question was about touch up... I dunno.

I would try it with the pencil after touching up a shave ready about 10 times and see what happens! Oh yeah, don't forget to post your results also!

Use the pencil grids until you learn the results.

Perspective/attitude - To me the Nortons are an expendable resource that can be renewed and since they are the work horse hones they need to be in top shape. I do not try to make my Nortons last forever.