Gonna buy a lapping/flattening plate

[Acmemfg]

Decided to step up from the mess of SIC and WD sandpaper; going to buy a lapping plate. Question is: what is the most versatile item to purchase? I will use this to flatten a wide variety of hones:
coticules, Arkansas, Slate, synthetics. Pretty much the whole catalog.
Atoma 140 seems to get a lot of love as do some DMT and Naniwa plates. Any suggestions?

 

[buca3152]

Atoma 400 as you already have sic powder for the hard lapping is what I think. Having said that I have all the atomas. 140 thru 1200.

 

[JPO]

Atoma 400 or 600. My Atoma 1200 will develop too much suction to the stone in my opinion.
I might use the 1200 just to condition the surface after coarser lapping.

 

[Gamma]

Arks will wear most diamond plates to a significant degree.

I have a bunch of plates in varying degrees of wear, maybe 6 or 8 right now.
I give worn plates away sometimes because the clutter gets out of hand.

The worn Atoma 140 and 400x get used daily.
Fresh 140x plates for new very hard stones needing a lot of material to be removed.
Fresh 400x plates get moved in once in a while, when the worn plates become way too slow.

If I had to buy one plate and one plate only - I'd choose the 400x Atoma.

I lap a lot of stones quite often so I go through 140x plates regularly but the 400x plates hang in there for a while.

When I had DMT plates I preferred the duo-fine with the interrupted surface over the diafine. Both worked though.
I still have a duofine actually, 200/325x version. Still works but it is sorta slow now.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Depends on what you plan to do with the plate. If you are flattening or restoring eBay stone and will be removing a lot of material, go with a 140 plate. If just re-surfing re-freshing stones a 400 or 600.

Which plate you buy does not matter… that much. I have all the big name brands and eBay no name Chinese plates and they all work about equally as well, many of my plates are decades old.

Arks will trash a plate, any plate in a hurry. For Arks use loose Silicone Carbide, Wet & Dry and or a dual grit Carborundum stone.

You can buy a 140 plate from Chef Knives to Go for $35 and a 400/1k for $30, I have both and they have lapped many, many stones. I also have all the Atomas and they work just as well, last just as long for 3 times the cost.

 

[Wid]

I have a DMT interrupted 325/600 and a cheap Chinese 400/100 diamond plate. Both wok well enough without spending a ton. Got the DMT at a garage sale for 20 bucks.

 

[Legion]

Atoma 400, but I don’t use mine on Arks.

 

[Acmemfg]

Curious…what do you use on Arks? I have a few that will need work in the foreseeable future.

 

[Legion]

Curious…what do you use on Arks? I have a few that will need work in the foreseeable future.

SIC powder if they are dished, followed by wet/dry paper.

 

[silverlifter]

Curious…what do you use on Arks? I have a few that will need work in the foreseeable future.

Lapping Hard Arkansas

How to prep your Hard Ark for honing straight razors

www.badgerandblade.com