escher DMT

[loueedacat1]

I just bought a yellow green escher. I started lapping one side on my DMT 325 and to my dismay, it looked like a thin woodchip had been chiseled out of the top of it where I was trying to round an edge and a divot was right in the middle. And this wasn't very deep into it, and I was using just weight of hone.

Is a DMT just too course to lap a yellow green escher? And what should I use - higher grit sandpaper maybe?

[EL Alamein]

I don't have any experience lapping with a DMT, however, I highly suggest you use the highest grit DMT lapping stone when lapping an Escher or Belgian etc. The reason being that you don't want a gritty surface left on the hone. Always best to have the smoothest surface possible. This same issue exists for Norton's and their proprietary flattening hone. In that situation you have to smooth the hone out a bit after using the flattening stone.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[loueedacat1]

I don't have any experience lapping with a DMT, however, I highly suggest you use the highest grit DMT lapping stone when lapping an Escher or Belgian etc. The reason being that you don't want a gritty surface left on the hone. Always best to have the smoothest surface possible. This same issue exists for Norton's and their proprietary flattening hone. In that situation you have to smooth the hone out a bit after using the flattening stone.

Hope that helps.

Chris

Chris that does help alot. Darnit I wish I knew that before!! Unfortunately I only have a 325 DMT and don't want to buy another right now.

Would you discourage getting say 1000 grit sandpaper and lapping with that in the meantime?

More importantly, what do you lap your belgians and natural stones with?

My DMT 325 seems to work dandy with my blue and yellow belgians, but for all I know it is leaving a scratchy surface. So much to learn.

[EL Alamein]

I lap my Belgians with that Conk honing stone. It's not really any good as a hone but it works fabulous to smooth out the Belgians and the Nortons. After I lap the Norton with the flattening hone I always run that Conk stone over it's surfaces and get them nice and smooth. It's pretty good. Too scratchy a surface on a hone can possibly microchip the living daylights out of your blade. Always check the edge with a microscope to be sure.

Now one thing to remember is that once the Belgian is flattened it may not need to be lapped for many years if you're only maintaining a few blades. Of course if you're generating a slurry every now and then that process is self flattening from using the rubbing stone so even there you're talking about years between lappings unless you're Lynn Abrams and honing 1500 razors a year. I would think the same would apply to the Eschers though I can't remember if they're all as hard as the coticule. But then again all the stones have variation in hardness even amongst like stones so you have to use your judgement.

I would not use sandpaper to lap my hones at all. There's just too much that can go wrong and they leave grit behind easier. The conk hone is somewhere around $20.00 I think? Works fine.

Chris

[loueedacat1]

I lap my Belgians with that Conk honing stone. It's not really any good as a hone but it works fabulous to smooth out the Belgians and the Nortons. After I lap the Norton with the flattening hone I always run that Conk stone over it's surfaces and get them nice and smooth. It's pretty good. Too scratchy a surface on a hone can possibly microchip the living daylights out of your blade. Always check the edge with a microscope to be sure.

Now one thing to remember is that once the Belgian is flattened it may not need to be lapped for many years if you're only maintaining a few blades. Of course if you're generating a slurry every now and then that process is self flattening from using the rubbing stone so even there you're talking about years between lappings unless you're Lynn Abrams and honing 1500 razors a year. I would think the same would apply to the Eschers though I can't remember if they're all as hard as the coticule. But then again all the stones have variation in hardness even amongst like stones so you have to use your judgement.

I would not use sandpaper to lap my hones at all. There's just too much that can go wrong and they leave grit behind easier. The conk hone is somewhere around $20.00 I think? Works fine.

Chris

thanks Chris. I'm not sure if escher is harder or softer than the coticule. It feels very differnt (and very cool) but I haven't worked out if it's harder.

[kaptain_zero]

Is a DMT just too course to lap a yellow green escher? And what should I use - higher grit sandpaper maybe?

Relax, the 325 is very suitable for lapping any hone except for the very coarse hones such as 220 or coarser. I'm afraid you have simply run into the one thing nobody has any control over and that is the formation of a natural hone. It appears there may have been a slight flaw in the hone and it let go when you began to flatten it. It is very likely that it would have happened even if you had used a finer diamond hone but perhaps not as it wouldn't be grabbed quite so aggressively by a finer grit hone. I only use the 325 on my hones, Norton, Shapton, Swaty, Belgian Yellow, Belgian Blue, Thuringen etc. and have had zero issues. I don't like using a finer hone simply because the finer the lapping hone, the more damage it does to the surface grit of the hone that is being lapped. This very thing is used deliberately with a grading stone on an aluminum oxide water stone on a Tormek sharpening machine. A silicone carbide coarse/fine hone is pressed against the aluminum oxide wheel and can either rough up the surface to restore the original 220 grit of the wheel or it can fracture the aluminum oxide crystals making them cut as if they were 1000 grit. I feel the same thing can happen to bench hones if the lap is too fine a grit.

Regards

Christian

[Slant-Fan]

I go along with the Kaptain on this. I have Coticules, Eschers, Shaptons, Nortons and Muellers and have lapped all with the D8C 325 with no problems. Sorry about your yellow/green. It should still be usable but that would ruin my day too.

[loueedacat1]

I go along with the Kaptain on this. I have Coticules, Eschers, Shaptons, Nortons and Muellers and have lapped all with the D8C 325 with no problems. Sorry about your yellow/green. It should still be usable but that would ruin my day too.

It's actually pretty thick, and the other side is working great without lapping so I'm just going to keep doing that and trying to fix the other side with corrective more gentle lapping.

I've actually really enjoyed the unlapped side. But yeah it almost made me cry when I took it off the 325 and was like "what the f___?"