Reply To: Am I bad or got a bad batch of diamond plates?
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Kodi,
Do those EZ-LAP diamond plates still grab your fingernail if you rub the tip of your fingernail across the diamond plate. If so, particularly on the coarse plate, then the diamonds are still there. If it is smooth and does not grab your fingernail then maybe the diamond has de-bonded from the substrate or steel and the plate is irretrievably damaged. You should still feel some resistance to rubbing the fingernail down the finer plates too as they bite into your nail. You mention in your post that “there were some streaks on the glass after rubbing it against the plate” – what did you mean by this? You didn’t rub the glass plate against the diamond plate I hope. Diamonds are hard but they can be damaged. Glass is a hard material.
I must admit, like the others above, I use coarse wet and dry paper (with light machine oil/3in1 oil or sewing machine oil -or even baby oil if I’ve run out of the others) to do the hard flattening work on the back of the iron and a wet grinder to do the hard work on the bezel. If I didn’t have the wet grinder, I would also use the wet and dry paper on glass plate for the bezel too. I only use the diamond plates for the actual honing, not reshaping the iron.
All the best!
Mark