My new Norton hones from gary!

[mrmaroon]

Ive got a chance to fully test out the Nortons 1k 4k 8k on a variety of razors. Here are my results! To be honest, the edge I get off the 8k isn't as impressive as I'd have hoped. My finishing results with a coticule are about par with what I can get on my BBW/Coti hybrid dilocut. However, I can attain the same amount of work in a lot less time, about 5 times less that if I did it on coti only. It also removes the slurry dlution variable and that is a great thing to get rid of. I know I will return to coti only in the future, but for right now I am having a lot of fun with these hones. Thanks gary!

BTW, that pyramid scheme just blows. It doesn't make sense going backwards to me. I have had no problems with overhoning on the 8k. Maybe I will go back to it later.

 

[rayman]

Caleb,
The pyramid scheme doesn't necessarily totally blow, but once you gain enough experience honing, I am sure you will know exactly what parts of it might not. Overall though, I think you are right, it blows.

Ray

 

[garyhaywood]

You will get a nice shave of the 8k. The thing i found is you have to be very gentle. You must let the hones do the work, Once you can shavew arm hair of the 1k or you get a nice strong drag across qwet nail at 1k stage only, try 40 laps on the 4k then 30 on the 8k strop and test hht. If this fails go back and do another 5 on 8k strop and test hht repeat several times. If the blade is cathching the hair your not far of so just go back to 8k. If not just do a pyramid of 3/3 1/5 1/7 keep repeating untill you hit the hht after stroping also try of the hone.. Only when you get a good shave of 8k add your finisher then you will notice the smoothness of your coticule. If you gently dull a razor the 4k will bring the edge with 30 laps easily if the razor was sharp before. hope this helps. One of the reasons i like dilucot is you can just hone with out thinking of how many laps your doing untill you finish on water. Nortons do take less time . I never worked with them as i have with the coticule if i had i would of been more consistant with the nortons . learn how to undersatnd them , the only way is keep working with them

 

[mrmaroon]

Also, when did you mail the hone gary? Was it Wednesday or Thursday? i have a hard time believing it got here in 4-5 days.:blink: On the pyramid scheme, I have tried it twice and got pretty decent results off of it, but nothing I couldn;t have got with a normal progression.

 

[garyhaywood]

Thursday morning.

 

[mrmaroon]

Wow, to me in three days? I'm not going to completely write off this pyramid scheme so far, ive only had the hones for 2 days and need to test further. I have had good success dropping back to the 4k for one or two strokes and continuing on.


Also, do you think they wear at different rates gary? It seems like to me from least to most 8k 1k 4k.

 

[garyhaywood]

the4k gets most use and 1k , but don't forget i have lapped them quite regular.

 

[garyhaywood]

the4k gets most use and 1k , but don't forget i have lapped them quite regular.

I.ve had them from the start they were my first hones. I have owned coticules since and they have had lots more use. that is all i use now. I also have cro.ox , bio paste, ti rasoir paste, which i tend to experimant with. I also have a couple of nice barber hones, i nver tryed them.

I just love honing on coticules and always have. Thats why my other hones don't get touched . I had full set of naniwas, i could'nt be doing with the fafing about,etc. so i sold them . I would'nt mind getting a 10k naniwa to try after coticule just to see if there is a differance.

 

[Disburden]

When I first started honing on my Norton 4/8K I was very paranoid about over honing the razors and ending up with weak wire edges. I think most of us are afraid of over honing on the Nortons because a Coticule is something you can't over hone on. The problem for me was my edges were always ALMOST good enough when I was using pyramids, and I thought because of these results either I was horrible at honing or my razors sucked even though they're from Germany, etc. Now I use my trusty Microscope from Radio Shack and I can see when the scratch patterns are replaced by finer grit stones and then I can test the edge with arm shaving, TPT, etc. Since getting the hang of that method of honing I have stopped thinking about the Pyramids and I haven't looked back. Sham from SRP has a very good method of honing with a Norton in the progression which is simple. Take the bevel after the 1K to a 4K, hone on that until arm hair shaves off and pops off the arm mid length shaving. Then take it to the 8k until the arm hair shaves off silently and just falls to the razor mid length, then you can polish. This is also with looking through a microscope, of course.