[crazycliff200843]

I have a shapton pro 12k ceramic stone and I was wondering if lapping it with a norton lapping stone would ruin the finish on it/ make the surface too rough? I've looked through a lot of threads and there was only one with a vague reference to somebody's friend saying it roughed up his stone. If it does rough up the surface, could a finer grit stone be used to smooth it out? Or should it be lapped with a finer stone to begin with?

[JimmyH-AD]

Originally Posted by crazycliff200843

I have a shapton pro 12k ceramic stone and I was wondering if lapping it with a norton lapping stone would ruin the finish on it/ make the surface too rough? I've looked through a lot of threads and there was only one with a vague reference to somebody's friend saying it roughed up his stone. If it does rough up the surface, could a finer grit stone be used to smooth it out? Or should it be lapped with a finer stone to begin with?

The 16K glass that my friend lapped with the Norton flattening stone felt rough under my fingers. I did some honing on it and it worked but I would prefer a D8C at the very least to lap the Shaptons be it glass or the pro. The nice thing about the diamond plate is that you know that the stone is not changing the flatness of the plate to any great extent. I don't think the same can be said for the Norton.

[crazycliff200843]

I finally got a norton flattening stone in the mail and it worked rather well on all the stones I used on it. I had 3 smaller (3 x 6) synthetic ones I did first and they wore down the middle of the big norton a little bit. I didn't know the norton was as big as it was. Then I took the shapton to it. It worked well enough, but only along the sides where the norton hadn't worn down so much. So, I flipped the norton over and used the side without the grooves and it worked well enough. The only problem was that the shapton clogged up the norton pretty fast, on both sides. I had to rinse it a couple of times before I was done, and this caused an almost claylike slurry/putty to form. It washed off easy enough and I got the remnants out by rubbing it with one of the previous stones I had used which I think is harder than the norton. All in all, everything cleaned up rather nicley. I honed up two razors with them and now they're a lot sharper than from when I had sharpened them before. It did rough up all of the stones, but the surfaces seem to be uniform for the most part. I thought that parts of the grit would come off and ball up and leave grooves in the surface of all of them, but that just wasn't the case. They all seem to cut a little bit faster now, but, with the naked eye, they seem to leave the same amount/depth of lines/striations/grooves on the bevel. Now I'm thinking about one of those diamond lapping plates to get the norton true again. It's amazing what you can learn about shaving when you have a sharp razor.

[JimmyH-AD]

I lap in the kitchen sink with a trickle of water coming out of the faucet onto the stone/plate. If you get the diamond plate get an 8" plate. You don't want to lap with a plate smaller then what you are lapping. I would use the diamond plate for the hones not the Norton flattening stone. That is a mighty coarse stone. Maybe get the Norton flat on a counter top with coarser sand paper. Of those that use diamond plates I think that most use the DMT continuous surface D8C 325 micron available here.

[crazycliff200843]

I was looking at those earlier this morning and I was actually leaning toward the ones that were not continuous. I figured that the excess grit/slurry would build up and I would find myself rinsing more often. I received some 40 micron paper with my norton flattening stone. I think I will try that first and see where that gets me. Wouldn't the diamond hone wear down eventually as well?

[JimmyH-AD]

The following is from DMT's faq on their website;

Which grit is the best grit to use to flatten my Japanese water stones?

We recommend a DMT® coarse grit (45 micron, 325 mesh) or extra coarse (60micron, 220 mesh) 8" or 250 mm DuoSharp¨ bench stone for flattening Japanese water stones. It’s fast and easy. Make sure there is plenty of water to flood the surfaces of the stones when flattening to wash away the slurry made by the flattening process.

Check out the faq as it answers most of the questions you might have.

[crazycliff200843]

I found the grit on the 3m paper to work well on the shapton, but I would think that the norton would eat it alive before I would see any real progress with it. So, I didn't even try. Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe I will get myself something nice.

[Bruno]

@CrazyCliff:

Most people here have the DMTD8C and are very happy with it. I am one of those.
I also have the norton flattening stone, but if you use it with smaller stones, it'll wear down in the middle pretty fast. Once you have a diamond plate, you can pretty much forget that the norton flattening stone exist.

Also VERY IMPORTANT:
DO NOT under ANY circumstance lap a dished norton flattening stone on a diamond plate . You'll destroy the diamond plate because the norton will start eating into the sides of the diamond plate, and scrape away the diamonds and the top level nickel coating.
Trust me one this one.

Also it is not really recommended to use the diamond plates to lap 220 grit stones, because they have the ability to damage the diamond plate surface.

[crazycliff200843]

I have lapped all my stones several times now, and the norton flattening stone looks as if it has seen better days. It is pretty dished out and the grooves are almost gone. It did get all my hones flat and I can now just use sandpaper on glass to keep them that way. I think I could still use the backside of it to set bevels. Maybe I will find some concrete to level out the grooved side.

As far as the DMT goes, should I worry about the stone I have that did the most damage to the norton? It wore it down much more quickly than my other ones.

[Bruno]

It shouldn't matter at all.
The norton is meant to only flatten nortons because it is so soft.
The only way to damage a DMT imo is if you have a really dished out stone that scrapes into the sides of the DMT.