Abstract—The lapping plate is imperative because it influences the material removal rate and the surface quality of a workpiece. The cast-iron plate is a conventional lapping tool for machining hard and brittle material substrates, but it has poor lapping performance and bad rust resistance in the lapping process. To resolve these problems, our group has applied stainless steel as a lapping tool. The hardness of the lapping tool can be controlled using thermal treatment. The surface roughness of the lapping plate can be altered using mechanical conditioning or chemical etching. Because the rust resistance of stainless steel is very strong, the stable lapping performance of the lapping plate is easy to obtain. Furthermore, a great increase in the material removal rate and equal surface roughness of the workpiece can be achieved simply by changing the cast-iron lapping plate to a stainless-steel one.