Lapping Plate

Flat waterstones are critical for straight blade edges when sharpening. Flat chisel and plane blade backs are also critical to create sharp accurate blades.

Our Lapping Plate is made in Adelaide. It is of mild steel 230mm long x 90mm wide x 16mm thick weighing 2.5Kg. The main two faces are ground perfectly flat.

The Lapping Plate comes with 4 pieces of 120 grit wet & dry sandpaper pre cut to the Lapping Plate dimensions along with a non-slip rubber mat to put between the plate & your bench.

The Lapping Plate can be used to keep your sharpening stones flat. Spray some water onto the plate and sandpaper. The sandpaper will adhere to the lapping plate due to its flatness. Place the Lapping Plate on your bench or table, mark your stone with around 6 horizontal pencil lines across the width of the stone, rub the stone on the Lapping Plate (with the sandpaper in place) until all the pencil lines disappear. When this happens your stone is flat. Give your sandpaper a few sprays with water during the process to flush away the stone’s grit. When you are finished stone flattening, dry off the plate, it is mild steel which will easily tarnish.

If you would rather glue your sandpaper to your Lapping Plate you can do so with spray adhesive.

A side of the Lapping Plate can also be used for lapping (flattening) the backs of blades, chisels, plane blades. This can be done with applying some lapping grit/powder, or, by rubbing a waterstone (around 1000 grit) on the plate. The cutting grit from the water stone will imbed in the mild steel and produce a flat cutting surface to do your lapping.

There is a picture showing a yellow waterstone sitting on the Lapping Plate with 120 grit wet & dry sandpaper in place.