Ways to Clean Lapping Stones

During my last Class Tim one of the students showed this old dog a new trick. The tapered slip stones I give out during the class get contaminated with bluing, high lighter and grit. I have cleaned them in the past by squirting them with brake cleaner, rubbed 2 of them together with go-go, laid them on emery paper on a flat surface like an old surface plate, put diamond lapping compound on a lapping plate and rubbed the stone to it, used tooth paste and brush under hot water tap, etc.

Others have told me they use a Harbor Freight diamond lap. Tim showed us something the Old timers at Ingersoll used when he worked there. Rub the stone on a Wet sheet of cardboard with mineral spirits and we used Windex. Hell if it didn't clean the stone in a 1/2 dozen swipes. Was crazy how will it worked.

Richard King said:

During my last Class Tim one of the students showed this old dog a new trick. The tapered slip stones I give out during the class get contaminated with bluing, high lighter and grit. I have cleaned them in the past by squirting them with brake cleaner, rubbed 2 of them together with go-go, laid them on emery paper on a flat surface like an old surface plate, put diamond lapping compound on a lapping plate and rubbed the stone to it, used tooth paste and brush under hot water tap, etc.

Others have told me they use a Harbor Freight diamond lap. Tim showed us something the Old timers at Ingersoll used when he worked there. Rub the stone on a Wet sheet of cardboard with mineral spirits and we used Windex. Hell if it didn't clean the stone in a 1/2 dozen swipes. Was crazy how will it worked.

Click to expand...

.
.
i use mineral spirits and i use
1) Starrett surface plate cleaner and
2) Simple Green All-Purpose cleaner and
3) Windex industrial strength
to clean large parts that got coolant or water based stuff on them. Simple Green is the strongest cleaner probably cause its suppose to be diluted with water and i am using it straight out of the bottle. Starrett surface place cleaner 2nd strongest but guaranteed to leave no residue. Windex Industrial Strength we get in 5 gallon containers as its cheaper in price
.
trick is finding stuff that does leave a residue.
.
i often use Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom tile cleaner to clean soap based stuff like grease (grease is soap based) thats on machines but that definitely will cause rust and leaves a residue that needs washing off

Richard King said:

During my last Class Tim one of the students showed this old dog a new trick. The tapered slip stones I give out during the class get contaminated with bluing, high lighter and grit. I have cleaned them in the past by squirting them with brake cleaner, rubbed 2 of them together with go-go, laid them on emery paper on a flat surface like an old surface plate, put diamond lapping compound on a lapping plate and rubbed the stone to it, used tooth paste and brush under hot water tap, etc.

Others have told me they use a Harbor Freight diamond lap. Tim showed us something the Old timers at Ingersoll used when he worked there. Rub the stone on a Wet sheet of cardboard with mineral spirits and we used Windex. Hell if it didn't clean the stone in a 1/2 dozen swipes. Was crazy how will it worked.

Click to expand...

The setup doesn't transfer to a scraper's needs. The solvent(s) might.

When Day Job had us hand-lapping 20 to 30 thousand magnetic microphone, reproducer, or "inertial" transducer air-gaps a year, it was done immersed just below the surface of Stoddard solvent AKA Varsol and other names - so as to keep the abrasive clean and actively sharp.

That company had a long-standing need, given their patents meant they supplied others in the industry, 1923 onward, so that choice had come only after a lot of experiments with alternatives.

1/2 CW

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz - Thermite or Monarchist or what ever name you are using go buzz away to a forum where someone cares... You have no clue of what the heck were talking about. Someone swat the bug and put it on ignore

Here is the stone I use for the classes. I also have had good results lately using a ground flat stone that was given to me in Germany. A Tyrolit FO 90K size 6 x 27 x 32mm and is ground. I hear a few people on You Tube are making diamond ground stones as the Tyrolit is. I had been buying the Tapered slips from MSC brand name USA Sharpening Indian Round Slip 4 1/2 x 1 3/4 number 178A Lately those stones have been bent, so today I bought some Norton MS-24 and I will see how they compare. Norton was about $4.00 more each. I give one to each student in the classes. I leave next week to teach 2 weeks of classes in California. We have room for a few more students in the Petaluma that is about 50 minutes north of San Francisco. Rich

Airbearings inc has them too...but I heard big bucks

Tried the cardboard paper/windex trick tonight. Agree it seems to get rid of crud and probably will decrease my use of a diamond flat. I still need to use my diamond plate to flatten though, and get rid of embedded bits of iron. At Forrest Addy's suggestion years ago, I got a DMT extra extra course 120 micron diamond flat for flattening stones. Still on my first diamond flat thankfully, given the price.

Lucky7

A couple of students have bought and brought (hate to say it) Harbor freight diamond lap with 3 sides. I'm going to buy one and give it a test. They said it worked good. :-)

The way I refresh a stone is to get some sandblasting garnet which I have anyway so I use it, a glass plate and mix some garnet with water and handcleaner to make a slurry on the glass plate and a dozen loops and the stone is fully refreshed.

DMF_TomB said:

.
.
i use mineral spirits and i use
1) Starrett surface plate cleaner and
2) Simple Green All-Purpose cleaner and
3) Windex industrial strength
to clean large parts that got coolant or water based stuff on them. Simple Green is the strongest cleaner probably cause its suppose to be diluted with water and i am using it straight out of the bottle. Starrett surface place cleaner 2nd strongest but guaranteed to leave no residue. Windex Industrial Strength we get in 5 gallon containers as its cheaper in price
.
trick is finding stuff that does leave a residue.

Click to expand...

Which residue is that? Are you thinking about cleaning windows? You are aware this thread is about keeping an oil / sharpening / oil / slip stones open & free cutting. The kind that will knock off a burr,or Plateau a high scrapped spot?

Those big Toshiba's at Gleason Gear Works NY. Surely you sail an oil stone across the table before you land those honking great castings, and whisper them into 0.0002' per yard?

Or maybe your the window washer? 3). Windex industrial strength. You seem to be on best terms with Windex Industrial Strength Any chance you're just the Janitor there? What does Excel say?

It was so simple. Thread was simply Called "Ways to clean lapping Stone".Simple, humble brain dead piece of rock.

Yet we had to MonThermDumbMFu**er out of it.

I use the lap I used for working my granite plate, just an old CI surface plate around 15" x 12". I havent charged it ages but it still cuts well enough to clean up a stone. A dab of mineral spirits and a fews swipes is normally enough.
Will give the cardboard thing a try next time just for kicks.

RC99 said:

The way I refresh a stone is to get some sandblasting garnet which I have anyway so I use it, a glass plate and mix some garnet with water and handcleaner to make a slurry on the glass plate and a dozen loops and the stone is fully refreshed.

Click to expand...

I've used roughly the same process but with the dust that collects around the bench grinder.

I was working on a blanchard grinder today that is used to grind stones and grinding wheels to thickness. They use 1" diameter diamond buttons on the grinding head. Works pretty well. Hell on the grinder though.

I use him. 16" dia. I put him through a Blohm Grinder twice a year. I put him at better than 4 um. I grind my stones, just because it's easy to do. Then tickle them up / open them up with lapping paste closely married to the same grit as the stone. Its not rocket science.

Whilst I like a flat stone, I'm not buying into this uber flat Rob Renz thing. Surely the lowest bulge of a stone, still hits the high spot, and you aught to be able to feel that. Its only happened for more than a century.

ewlsey said:

I've used roughly the same process but with the dust that collects around the bench grinder

Click to expand...

Mix that with a little oil and you have the perfect grinding paste. If its off a surface grinder, say A36, you get that dressing dust.

If your stuck on a site, with a tight thread, any help will do. That brought back old memories.

Name brand stones seem/are more square than bargain stones. I like to check a stone for square and the use marked side for a quick check to see/check square of a part..I have even set a stone on the surface grinder to skim-square one side..Mostly use Norton stones..

Also like to grind one side on a Norbide stick with long travel of surface grinder so the straight line i=of wheel grit are left long ways on the Norbide..that makes a good burr taker laying flat or a fine corner break for mild parts.

I keep a 8x12" steel plate near my grinding as a hand surface plate and checking fixture holder..a little diamond wheel grit and oil make quick stone cleaning..also keeps the plate flat..mostly my stone stay clan because I use them with oil.
I never use my flat stones for bumping edges and burrs...or sharpening a knife.

DMF_TomB said:

.
.
i use mineral spirits and i use
1) Starrett surface plate cleaner and
2) Simple Green All-Purpose cleaner and
3) Windex industrial strength
to clean large parts that got coolant or water based stuff on them. Simple Green is the strongest cleaner probably cause its suppose to be diluted with water and i am using it straight out of the bottle. Starrett surface place cleaner 2nd strongest but guaranteed to leave no residue. Windex Industrial Strength we get in 5 gallon containers as its cheaper in price
.
trick is finding stuff that does leave a residue.
.
i often use Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom tile cleaner to clean soap based stuff like grease (grease is soap based) thats on machines but that definitely will cause rust and leaves a residue that needs washing off

Click to expand...

.
.
my point is Simple Green Cleaner and Starrett surface plate cleaner normally cleans faster than Windex cleaning water based stuff off
.
use what ever cleaner you feel is best only saying other cleaners could work better and or faster. its exactly the same advice i got after using Windex for years. others said try this it works better and or faster. i tried and found it works better usually. thats what happens when people in a shop actually talk politely to one another. they learn from one another
.
also sticky glue type stuff usually citrus based cleaners work best. often use adhesive backed sandpaper and lapping film and if sticky adhesive on the flat ground support block it cleans faster with citrus based stuff. i learned that on production line equipment that dispenses tape. often rollers got sticky goo on then. they sell plastic lapping film with different types of abrasive. diamond lapping film is fairly common
.
often used abrasive stones before we shifted to using adhesive backed sandpaper or lapping film on special made support blocks. advantage being when its worn replace lapping film the support block never looses its shape. at least thats been my experience for maybe 2 decades. often used adhesive backed lapping blocks in many different angular shapes
.
the best thing about lapping film is you can use 600 grit for "cleaning" and a coarser grit for "repairs" and change as needed fast. once i was given advice to try it, i tried it, found it works better usually. used to work on equipment where i had to lap to 10 millionths of a inch tolerances. obviously picking what grit to use and starting with coarse or medium and working up to extra fine grit i often had to do. easier with lapping film

I showed the guys at the class this trick. I learned it from some Ingersoll guys. When your stoning a 40' Planer Mill table the stone gets loaded up with crud quick. We always used Blanchard Burr Busters, photo attached. This is a pretty big and coarse stone. I don't know much about diamond laps and such, but from the ones I saw at the scraping class there is no way it is going to clean out a Burr Buster. Anyways it was always hard to the the crud out of the pores of the stone. It got deep down in and we used to soak them in kerosene and blow them out. The wet cardboard as it dissolves gets in the pores and gets the crud out. We always used kerosene on the cardboard since that is what we were using to stone the table. Because of the mess and smell we used it sparingly. With water at the class I found that the wetter the cardboard the better it works. You learn something new every day. As a side note, who knows what the depression in the stone is for?

Talking about stones....

Clearance | Travers Tool Co., Inc.

For anyone that doesn't know about the Travers clearance section, they usually have loads of different stones/shapes/dressing sticks for next to nothing!Just poke around on there, ill usually buy a box full of stones to try out/deburr/mess around with for a couple bucks. I barely use files any more, who cares about grinding lines in your stones when they only cost .30 cents? Also a lot of other good stuff on that site as well.

I know the purpose of the depressions in the stone as Tim told me...LOL I also like to use those round stones with a finger grove between the fine and rough sides.

I'm gonna try the cardboard trick. I was about to start this morning on that surface plate I had in the 2017 Texas class. I just bought a Biax so I'm finally going to finish getting it up to 40ppi.

I've got'n in the habit of wet-stoning my scraping with windex as It's already there to clean up the surface. It dosn't keep the stone from getting dirty of course, but I found that the "build-up" spots happen alot less if at all.

It also keeps the amount of abrasive dust down I think. I always run coolant when surface grinding for the same reason. Even if it's not "needed" as a coolant, it keeps the machine and work area so much cleaner.

I use WD40 on a flat steel plate, the solvent in WD40 cleans them right up, sucks the dirt out of the stone. (If your Bridgeport table is burred up it's a great time to deburr that at the same time and double your effectiveness. Go ahead with the flames, I'm ready...) If the stone isn't flat, I have an old lapping plate and carborundum grit, sprinkle a little grit on the plate and lap the stone flat. A wood tray/box slightly wider than the plate with handles makes it easy to carry and the box catches the spill of abrasive. Spoon some out of the tray and back on the plate and you're ready again.