Thread: Can I lap my Shapton 16K w/ my D8C?

I recently ordered a DMT D8C to lap my Norton 4/8. Is there any reason I shouldn't use it on my Shapton 16K as well?

It should work fine.

A good advice I got from Glen was to rub the 16k with the norton 8000, after lapping with the DMT

you could use a finer grit diamond hone on the shapton i use my 600 grit on my 2000 and my 6000 and finish with wet paper up tp 2500 grit

I use only the D8C with my Shapton 16K and have zero issues with it. While using a finer lap might change the *feel* when honing razors on the 16k it is unlikely to make any significant difference in the end result on the edge where it matters. The coarser striations left by the 325 grit D8C vs the 600 grit or finer will tend to help relieve any excessive stiction that some notice when using Shapton hones.

Personally, I would not use the Norton 8K to lap a Shapton 16k out of concern for the possibility of embedding 8k grit in the 16k surface, particularly as there is nothing to be gained except for dulling the surface grit on the Shapton.

Regards

Christian

A good advice I got from Glen was to rub the 16k with the norton 8000, after lapping with the DMT



Using the 8k is not for "lapping" it is for smoothing, and the original idea was not mine IIRC the credit goes to mparker and an idea of progressive lapping to always have a smooth surface after using those rough diamond hones to lap fine grit stones with....
You can use this trick with any hones to get a smoother feel to the stone and hence a smoother edge to the razor.....

I have been searching the archives for the original thread on this with no success so far, as I don't like getting credit for something that was not my idea in the first place

I think there may be some advantage to a coarse lapping plate 400 or less in that the grooves give the swarf a place to fall into getting it out of the way. But I really don't see any difference in using 120 or 400 or 600, except that 600 really has a lot of lap stiction.

It is the old way, to lap a stone with a similar grit stone, but they worked very hard back then.

I'd love to see some science done on this. Even though we may try not to I think we end up with a good amount of bias in whatever techniques we use.