[Leon]

Hello gents,

I purchased a nice DMT D6E, but I haven't used it yet. I think it would be wise for me to ask you if there's anything I should know/do before using it.
Should I lap the DMT? If so, should a 360 grit sandpaper do the trick?
The DMT is one-sided only? The side that does the work is the one that is the topmost face when laying the DMT and the label on the side is not upside down, right?

Thanks!

[bjorn]

Originally Posted by Leon

Hello gents,

I purchased a nice DMT D6E, but I haven't used it yet. I think it would be wise for me to ask you if there's anything I should know/do before using it.
Should I lap the DMT? If so, should a 360 grit sandpaper do the trick?
The DMT is one-sided only? The side that does the work is the one that is the topmost face when laying the DMT and the label on the side is not upside down, right?

Thanks!

Just hone a knife or a chisel on it before you use it on razors to break it in. It's one sided, and the diamond surface is the one "above" the label.

[Bruno]

DMT plates are not lapped. They are flat when you get them, nd they will be flat until the day you die.
If you somehow manage to damage it, there is nothing you can do.

What some people do before using them is to take a chisel and rub the back of that chisel (or screwdriver, knife, ...) on the DMT to make sure that the sruface is clean and broken in.

Those DMTs have 1 useful side.
Normally there is writing on the side. If the writing is readable, the top side is the honing surface, and the rubber feet go on the bottom side.
You can also verify this by dragging your fingernail across the surface.

[Leon]

Just what I suspected.

Oh, one more thing. Should I use the DMT dry or with the aid of some drops of water (or slurry)?


Thanks gents!

[JimmyH-AD]

Use it with water, no slurry. I make a point to pull the shaft of a screwdriver along the edges of the plate to remove any spurs or high spots that might catch the razors edge. Run your fingernail along the edges to make sure you have gotten rid of any troublesome spots.

[PonderingTurtle]

Originally Posted by Leon

Just what I suspected.

Oh, one more thing. Should I use the DMT dry or with the aid of some drops of water (or slurry)?


Thanks gents!

Use with water, you can't get a slurry on a diamond stone. Diamond stones are thin layers of diamond bonded on to a metal plate. So laping them, slurries and the like are not relevant.

They do make double sided 6" dmt stones. I have a DMT 6F/E

[Bart]

I usually add a drop of dishwashing detergent to the water. This breaks the surface tension. Otherwise, I find that the water stays in bubbles on top of the DMT, surrounded by dry spots.
One drop of soap remedies that.

A great way to break in a DMT, is to lap a coticule with it. A while ago, I had the chance to compare my well used D6E to Tim's (another Belgian SRP member) brandnew one.
The difference was quite striking, even to the point where we contemplated for a while that Tim's DMT was defect. It turned out that Tim's DMT just needed a lot of breaking in, more than I ever recall to have done with mine.
Even after it's broken in, a DMT smoothens out over a prolonged period of time, much like sandpaper does, but unlike sandpaper, it takes years of use to wear it down completely.

Best regards,
Bart.

[PonderingTurtle]

Originally Posted by Bart

I usually add a drop of dishwashing detergent to the water. This breaks the surface tension. Otherwise, I find that the water stays in bubbles on top of the DMT, surrounded by dry spots.
One drop of soap remedies that.

I found that I don't get the same kinds of beading if I just put the stone in water upside down. That seems that the roughness of the diamonds is enough to prevent beads from forming if not enough to break up a bead of water.

[chem_fun]

Bart:

Apart from running my fingernail across the hone, how do I know it's broken in? I've got a DMTD8C and DMTD8EE. Looking under my stereo scope, I can tell when the scratches are going away, but there are small nicks that I'm assuming shouldn't be there. Would this imply that I'm not honing enough, or that the hone isn't broken in well enough yet?

[kaptain_zero]

Again with the stereo microscope.... (see my post in "Finishing Stone").

Frankly, all I did was lap hones with mine, they smooth out pretty quick, particularly if you lap a harder hone like a barber hone. If there's a patch of diamonds that are causing a wee bit of scratching or gouging of the hone you're lapping then sure... grab a piece of steel and work on that area a bit if you like.

As for the 1.2K and 8K DMTs, I would sharpen a few knives or something like that first as diamond plates are aggressive and can microchip edges of hard razors which is part of the reason why I rarely use them for razors unless I have a lot of work to do.

And +1 on the drop or two of dish detergent in the water...


Regards

Christian

[Bart]

Originally Posted by chem_fun

Bart:
Apart from running my fingernail across the hone, how do I know it's broken in? I've got a DMTD8C and DMTD8EE. Looking under my stereo scope, I can tell when the scratches are going away, but there are small nicks that I'm assuming shouldn't be there. Would this imply that I'm not honing enough, or that the hone isn't broken in well enough yet?

Firstl of all, be careful with that D8C: the 325 grit leaves deep and coarse scratch marks, and without intermediate hone it will take a long time on the D8EE before the last evidence of it is removed. I generally do not use a D8C for razors, unless for lapping hones, and when I need to build an entire new bevel on a razor, due to corrosion or after removing a frown.

I don't know your magnification factor. Seeing an extremely fine saw tooth pattern, the teeth being the same size as the scratch pattern from the hone, is normal, as long as the edge shows no sign of crumbling away. If you see a very small chip missing here and there, that's evidence of the hone knocking parts off the edge. If it are just three or four very small chips along the entire edge of the razor, your face probably won't notice if you polish well on the 12K.
The DMT will smooth out further over time.
Another trick I have used with great success is rubbing a piece of coticule over the DMT, till a slurry was present, and hone on the DMT with a coticule slurry. Perhaps you can do the same trick with your Chinese 12K. In my case, the harshness of the DMT completely dissapeared.. It also smoothed out my DMT to the point where it became a little slower cutting, but also much more gentle to the edge.

Hope this answers your question,

Bart.

[Ditch Doc]

I sharpened my kitchen knives with mine to break it in

[Leon]

Well, I used it tonight and here are my first impressions.

I grabbed my Belgian blue and under a small stream of water I lapped it using the fresh DMT D6E. With one stone in each hand I rubbed one against the other. Soon after, the blue started pouring slurry. The 2 stones sucked each other in a way that the top stone would grab the bottom one without any aid from me. I could only separate them by sliding one of them. I guess that's a sign that they're pretty much lapped, no?
After that, I grabbed my Wapi who was needing to get its edge redefined and I was curious to see the speed the DMT could remove metal. Holy cow, this DMT EATS metal! I didn't count the laps, but it didn't take that long the get a nice bevel. I continued with the DMT until it could pass the TPT. After some more minutes I guess I achieved it, so I swapped to the BBW and did about 50 passes and tomorrow I'll continue my honing session.
The current status of the Wapi is that it shaves arm hair, but only by "walking" in the skin. If I grab a hair in the air, and I touch the hair with the edge of the razor, it won't split it. Maybe I'll only achieve that in the coticule level...

[Bart]

About "grabbing hair in the air" (I like your expression)...
I always manage to pop an arm hair here and there, above skin level, after the D6E, but only if I end with extremely light laps. (A fumbled version of the HHT -slightly drawing the hair across the edge- works too).
BUT: after the Belgian Blue, I always loose both abilities. I find it imperative, though, to use a very light slurry, 'cause a too dense slurry tends to decrease the sharpness of the razor. Maybe too much into detail, but I've noticed if the razor still produces a soft ringing sound, as the hair is dragged across the edge, I'm still good to go. (It's a crude version of playing violin) If not, I overdid it on the slurry, and it always shows up in the final keenness after the coticule.

After the coticule, if I'm still on top of things, I can manage to do a "bearable" HHT again, which turns into a clean HHT after stropping 70 laps on clean leather.

There's a few other tricks I use, depending on the results of this basic progression, but I don't think this post is served by information overload...

Best regards,
Bart.