Now, someone should explain to him that it will need to be lapped, what a PIA it is and what else he's going to have to buy to do it.
Do I have to have a stone over 8K?
- Thread starter raccoonandbrush
- Start date
Now, someone should explain to him that it will need to be lapped, what a PIA it is and what else he's going to have to buy to do it.
- Thread starter
- #22
Are you referring to me or someone else? I have a 325 grit stone and I saw how to lap another stone with it.
Again, it's not only the particle size.
I was referring to you. I've heard that the Polish seller on eBay (open_razor?) sells the C12K lapped. The one from Woodcraft won't be lapped and its a real bear. I would not recommend using your 325 grit stone, I've never tried but I think that the C12K would destroy it. Either use lots of wet/dry abrasive paper or a diamond hone. My point is that the C12K can be bought for cheap but then it takes a lot of work to lap it.
I am really not sure why people say that lapping C12K is a PIA. I went to Home Depot, bought Norton's sandpaper for $3.95 and easily lapped it in less than 30 minutes. Both sides! The only thing that was PIA was sweeping all that "fine" dust..
Dust? Did you lap it dry? If so, that is not recommended for most stones. And, IMO, 30 mins is a looooong time to lap any hone, even for both sides.
Well, it must be that there are different hardnesses of these critters because I spent 4 hours lapping mine with wet/dry abrasive paper (1 wide side and 1 narrow side) and still didn't get the wide side completely flat, just good enough. Oh and my back hurt like hell. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
Mine must be a softer one because I lapped both sides on Norton Wet/Dry paper in about 20 minutes. Started with 220 and went up to 800. I like the edges it makes but it so dang slow. I'd really like to try a 12K Nani.
I don't think it's a question of harder or softer, but rather how close to flat they happen to be when you get them.
B
bluefoxicy
Then you have people like me who tap the edge right on the sink, denting straight through the bevel, and use the 4000 grit Norton for about 2 hours to reset the entire bevel.
I wish it took a half hour to lap my C12k. I spent the better part of two hours with a pack of 3M 320 grit wet/dry to get it flat. Do yourself a favor and get it pre-flattened.
Huh, it only took me ten or 15 minutes under running water with the DMT coarse plate. I put in that it would be used for shaving though, I might've gotten a flatter one because of that.
Back to the original question- no you don't need it, but unless you're gonna be sharpening a lot of razors, do you really have "the touch"? That's how I looked at it, and the chinese 12k plus chrome ox balsa strop turned out to be a phenomenal $45 investment.
Back to the original question- no you don't need it, but unless you're gonna be sharpening a lot of razors, do you really have "the touch"? That's how I looked at it, and the chinese 12k plus chrome ox balsa strop turned out to be a phenomenal $45 investment.
You need to look on Ebay.co.uk and there is a man from Poland who sell lapped Chinese hones. They look to cheap to be good. But they are very good.
I dont have or need a 12K Chinese hone, but I have seen one in use by a respected honester. The finished edge was buttery smooth.
The expression slow is not helpful either. The guy I was watching set the bevel with a 1200 grit diamond hone, sharpened the edge with a Belgian blue coticule and finished the edge to buttery smooth with the Chinese 12K. In all about five minutes.
To quote an old English proverb, "A bad workman will always blames his tools.
I dont have or need a 12K Chinese hone, but I have seen one in use by a respected honester. The finished edge was buttery smooth.
The expression slow is not helpful either. The guy I was watching set the bevel with a 1200 grit diamond hone, sharpened the edge with a Belgian blue coticule and finished the edge to buttery smooth with the Chinese 12K. In all about five minutes.
To quote an old English proverb, "A bad workman will always blames his tools.
You can get good sharpness (and shaves) with an 8K hone. However, the difference between getting a blade shave ready and getting it really sharp that it easily handles a hanging hair test almost requires post 8K honing. I didn't achieve satisfactory (for me) edge sharpness with my technique until I used a higher finishing stone and oxide paste stropping.
That's open_Razor.
The 12k is a great stone for the price, but people shouldn't be misled into thinking that it's a $20 version of Eschers or Naniwa 12k's or Shapton 16k's.
B
bluefoxicy
I don't want to use pastes but the C12k is a very, very slow cutter. I tried a little slurry last night and that felt like it had much more drag; though I worry about using a slurry stone too much and bowing the surface (and then needing to lap it... the damn thing is hard as a rock, I'd need a belt sander).
Dishing out a Chinese hone is the last, I mean the absolute last, thing in the world that you have to worry about. Besides, if you create slurry evenly all over, it will never happen.
