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Double acrylic plate as a substrate for lapping films

Hello,

I would like to hear your opinion on gluing two 10mm acrylic plates together to be used as a substrate form lapping film honing. The reason for doing so is because it is too much of a hassle for me to make a composite substrate. I live in a small apartment in the centre of a town and I have no tools nor space. Thickest acrylic on aliexpress seem to be 10mm, so I had a thought about cutting such a plate in half, gluing the halfes together to create a 20mm acrylic plate and hone on that.

I am burning through my naniwa SS 1k super fast since it is constantly loading up with swarf and I need to clean it a lot while doing heavy work on a razor. I'm down to the last few milimeters on that stone. I will soon need another bevel setter and I just thought about switching to films altogether. Can I expect the films to last a few thousand passes? Learning to hone seems to require them... Especially on Gold Dollars and cheap vintages.

I could just use the 600 side on my honing plate (some sort of metal honing stone, cheap, not sure it's a diamond plate, recommended by H Brad). But taking away those scratches is a lot of work on the next stone, and my SS 3K would go down the drain as well.
 
If you can afford a Chosera 1k 20mm you will never wear it out unless you use it daily for a decade. If your using your 1k so much you burned through one I fear film is not a solution for you so save your money and put it into a real solution.
I’m sure there are other stones that will fit your needs but when I wiped out my SS1K in a matter of months the Chosera was the best stone available. Its very hard and fast so it doesn’t require much lapping if you keep it clean with a slurry stone. They used to come with one, I don’t know if thats still true.
If your honing a lot of GDs I suggest a 600 and/or 1200 Atoma or DMT. Diamond plates are best for fixing Gold Dollar bevels and spines.
 
If you can afford a Chosera 1k 20mm you will never wear it out unless you use it daily for a decade. If your using your 1k so much you burned through one I fear film is not a solution for you so save your money and put it into a real solution.
I’m sure there are other stones that will fit your needs but when I wiped out my SS1K in a matter of months the Chosera was the best stone available. Its very hard and fast so it doesn’t require much lapping if you keep it clean with a slurry stone. They used to come with one, I don’t know if thats still true.
If your honing a lot of GDs I suggest a 600 and/or 1200 Atoma or DMT. Diamond plates are best for fixing Gold Dollar bevels and spines.
After some thinking, I completely agree.

It doesn't seem to come with a slurry stone. What could be used as one? Other than my lapping plate.

Also, does this chosera load fast? For example, my superstones are loaded with swarf under 30 laps when honing without slurry. I don't want to get another Stone that loads fast and needs constant lapping.
 
You can order actual slurry stones by King and Naniwa. You can actually use about any flat synthetic or natiral slurry stone to keep the surface of your 1k fast and fresh.
Thats why I mention a slurry stone and not always lapping the surface. All water stones will load up fairly quickly if your doing major repairs to a blade. If you do the hardest work with a mild slurry that will keep your stone from loading and use water only when your doing light work trying to max out the edge before moving to the next stone. Depending on where you buy the 1k from it will come with a 3x3” dressing stone. Your better off getting one of the Naniwa slurry stones seperate. The brown stone is very thirsty and needs to soak for 10 minutes before use if dry.
 
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After some thinking, I completely agree.

It doesn't seem to come with a slurry stone. What could be used as one? Other than my lapping plate.

Also, does this chosera load fast? For example, my superstones are loaded with swarf under 30 laps when honing without slurry. I don't want to get another Stone that loads fast and needs constant lapping.
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Hello,

I would like to hear your opinion on gluing two 10mm acrylic plates together to be used as a substrate form lapping film honing. The reason for doing so is because it is too much of a hassle for me to make a composite substrate. I live in a small apartment in the centre of a town and I have no tools nor space. Thickest acrylic on aliexpress seem to be 10mm, so I had a thought about cutting such a plate in half, gluing the halfes together to create a 20mm acrylic plate and hone on that.

I am burning through my naniwa SS 1k super fast since it is constantly loading up with swarf and I need to clean it a lot while doing heavy work on a razor. I'm down to the last few milimeters on that stone. I will soon need another bevel setter and I just thought about switching to films altogether. Can I expect the films to last a few thousand passes? Learning to hone seems to require them... Especially on Gold Dollars and cheap vintages.

I could just use the 600 side on my honing plate (some sort of metal honing stone, cheap, not sure it's a diamond plate, recommended by H Brad). But taking away those scratches is a lot of work on the next stone, and my SS 3K would go down the drain as well.
10mm is smaller than .45 and bigger than .357 so I guess close to a .40? Two would be a bit bigger than a 12ga bore I think. I would go with three layers. I believe you could lay them together and inject with a syringe along the edges and capillary action would draw it in. There is also adhesive that is made for this. The acetone eventually dissolves a thin layer of the acrylic and what you get is actually a chemical weld. It should hold forever. I think you will find that three layers or even four layers will work better for you, by elevating the surface above your fingertips while holding it in hand, which is how you should use it, not resting on a bench or table.

The plate will last forever. A sheet of film makes three pieces and each piece should do a dozen razors, on average.

Try beginning with a 320 grit Shapton Kuromaku when you have to remove a lot of steel. 400 or 600 grit red resin-type wet/dry sandpaper will work and I would lean more toward the 600 because rogue grits standing proud of the matrix will make big deep scratches. You could progress upward through as high as 2k grit sandpaper if you like. Finer grits are often used by auto body and paint shops so look to their sources because you probably won't find over 1k grit at a hardware store. But good quality sandpaper TBH isn't cheap, either.

A good grade of film for heavy work would be 60µ followed by 30µ and 15µ. Your goal should be a good bevel as you finish up with the latter. Then on to your normal progression of 9µ, 3µ, and 1µ.

Now I said a dozen per piece or 36 razors per full size sheet. When you are doing major edge corrections and setting bevels on very rough razors, you won't get that many uses out of a piece. You might be lucky if a razor is done on only one piece, in extreme situations. Yes, a 600 grit diamond plate of good quality will be good for removing a lot of metal. Cheap ones often are not flat enough though they may appear flat to the eye. They often have proud crystals that stand above the rest and make deep scratches. You can break in a plate by honing a big stainless steel chef knife on it but you can't fix being out of flat.

I like the 1k Naniwa Superstone very much. However, you can get more hard work out of the 1k Chosera or even the 600 grit Chosera, and use the SuperStone only to clean up the bevel afterwards.

There simply is no effective honing media that lasts forever. You just gotta break a few eggs, to make an omelette.

For breaking Gold Dollars I often began with enough laps on a 220 grit Suehiro I believe it is, or even 100 grit sandpaper though I do not normally recommend this for others as it is easily overdone. However in the last 6 or 7 years, quality has come up a little and such drastic measures usually are not needed anyway.

The trick to using very coarse grits is knowing when to stop. You don't raise a full burr with very coarse media, you only get the bevel out there close to an apex. Your goal is to remove about 3/4 of the steel that must be removed, until you get to the 1k or 2k range of grits, where you should at some point raise a burr and then hone it off. Then, your bevel is set, confirmed by a visual examination of the edge under very bright light with magnification such as a Belomo 10x Triplet loupe, IMHO the very best optic for razor honing.

When a stone loads up in the middle of doing a razor I usually just give it a quick rub with the next stone up or down in grit, then rinse well. A full lapping is not always required. You can also try raising the viscosity and surface tension of your honing water a bit by adding a drop of dishwashing soap to the stone. Keep some water on your stone. Don't hone it dry. It will still load up, but not as quickly. To me, the worst Naniwa SuperStone for loading up is the 3k. Honestly I don't find the others in the 1k to 12k range to be that bad.
 
Buy a 12X3 glass tile. They are not flat, but can easily be flattened with a sheet of 220. Perfect for a 9X11 sheet cut into 4 strips.

Here in the US they are $4-5 and can be purchased at any big box hardware store.
 
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