Lapping a slate

[Shaun asleep]

So I noticed one of my slates wasnt completely flat. The center part of the hone was clearly lower than the sides, so I lapped it using a 400 grit (Chinese) diamond plate but got lots of scratches. So I tried getting rid of them by using the slurry stone, but no dice.

Tried eliminating them with a 600 grit (Chinese) diamond plate and found even more scratches. I also did several round with the slurry stone, heavy pressured circles, light circles, then light strokes back and forth... But the scratches remain.

I don't feel them with my finger(nail) , but my finger isn't a thinly ground piece of carbon steel. Are these scratches a problem? Will they cause damage?
If so, whats the best way to get rid of them?

Cheers!

 

[albsat]

I think,you need sic powder over a glass plate. I don't know the correct grit sic powder. You can find the sic powder it in aliexpress.

 

[Legion]

Cheap diamond plates can have a few diamonds sitting up from the rest. Or a few random large ones. That is what makes the scratches.

You can buff the scratches away with wet dry sandpaper. Or scrape them away honing a knife. Scratches should not be a big deal as far as damage.

 

[Wid]

Slates are always getting scratched up. Won’t hurt their performance.

 

[psfred]

I tend to use a 300 grit stone on slates. You will want to finish with something like 400 or 600 grit W/D paper on something flat, slats work best with smooth surfaces as you are aware. A 1k stone will give you a good finish too, AlOx stones are harder than slates.

You have rouge grit somewhere, only takes one bit of 60 grit SiC to make a mess of a hard stone, speaking from personal experience.

 

[Iridian]

Isn't a problem for knives. Seems for razors neither.

 

[Frank Shaves]

I used 400 and 1000 diamond plates on my slates. Finish each grit using only the weight of the stone.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Yea, sharpen a couple of kitchen knives on the diamond plate to break it in and knock off any high diamonds, then lap a couple of low grit stones, 1k to smooth out the diamond plate.

As said slates are soft and scratch easily and should not affect the performance.

Do mark a pencil grid on your slate and remove it fully 2-3 times. Your stone is flat when you can completely remove the pencil grid in less than 10 laps.