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You can lap on a flat surface with sandpaper, and I don not lap my hones before every use/ or after. I usually only lap when I think that the stone is getting pretty worked over. Also, depending on...

Only way that I know of is to test them out... but you will be risking the need to send them out to be fixed.

As for finding barber hones...scroll down to the bottom of the following link......

Here are my thoughts...


the tri stone isn't what you are looking for IMHO. It's pretty small, and the grits are likely to be too coarse by a large margin.

the chinese hone can be a good...