Thread: My hone lapping just took a turn for the better

I reccently bought a couple of Japanese natural hones one a smaller sized one and the other a longer and narrow one. The smaller one is a so called 'razor size' it turns out it is no good for razors though and the other one is a very hard Shouhonyama that looked a little worse for wear.

If you have seen the Wade and Butcher I picked up and cleaned up and sent to Max for a shine and new scales you may see a trend. I like to find the diamonds in the rough, so to speak. This (the long narrow one) hone only cost me around 30 bucks and when it arrived the surface was in rough shape, a lot of marring for some reason.

Knowing it was a hard stone I didn't want to spend for ever lapping it like I did my Choseras and another ceramic hone I use for chisels and knives. My former lapping set up has been a 1/4 inch thick piece of plexiglass and wet/dry sand paper. It has been okay but not stellar.

So I decided I would try out an open mesh abrasive cloth. The wet/dry sand paper has been a silicon carbide base abbrasive but the mesh is an aluminum oxide base (faster cutting power) and usable in wet and dry conditions.

It is nearly four times the price but being able to use both sides it being resin bond and not glue I bought a sheet of 320 and a sheet of 600 of the mesh and a 1000 of the normal wet/dry. I hadn't ever used it before due to it's higher price tag but now that I have, I think I may have struck gold in this product. The hone lapped up in 10 minutes and when I was done with it, I put a superb mirror finish on the edge of a half hollow razor that I had waiting. For some reason it didn't pass the HHT but the TPT and the shave test proved to be very very good.

So for those of you with a smaller buget and can't or don't have the means to get a diamond plate I say go for the open mesh abbrasive cloth. It is two sided and is long lived. The brand I got is made by Koyo (<--- link) and comes in grit sizes from 80 to 2000. They also make a micromesh that goes up to 4000 and if it is as good the lower grits I might say it could be used for bevel setting and initial sharpening.

My impressions only, I leave the rest up to you.

Here are the two hones I am talking about:

Oh, and the face of the Shouhonyama hone after lapping is as smooth as glass and has exposed a beautiful blue green swirl thoughout the hone. Very nice!

Thanks for the link!
Now, which abrasive sheet did you use? the first one? The Koyo?

Does it clean up with water?

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Thanks for the link!
Now, which abrasive sheet did you use? the first one? The Koyo?

Does it clean up with water?

Randy, I used the Polinet Sheet. The store only had up to 600 grit so that is why I didn't get the 1000 grit in the same Polinet sheet. These work in both dry and wet applications because of the resin bonding of the abrasive. I contacted the company to find out if there are any other retailers than the one I visited and they got back to me but said that the stores didn't carry all of the different lines. I will see what more I can find out.

Seth