Thread: Newbie Tip: Norton lapping/honing/glazing

Not sure if this makes any sense. If it does, it might help some of the other newbies.


Here's some background in the form of a short novel -- read it if you're bored:

I started using straights in the Fall, and of course spent countless hours researching and eventually trying my hand at honing a brand new razor. I eventually got the razor very sharp, but not sharp enough for anything less than a painful, grabby shave.

Then I joined this forum. I read that sometimes hones need to be lapped straight out of the box. After checking on a glass table, my 4K/8K Norton didn't appear flat at all, and the edges weren't beveled, so I proceeded to lap with 800-grit wetsandpaper. Within 10 minutes, I passed the HHT for the first time. Awesome!!!

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That worked for a while, and I picked up a few restored razors from Billy's Blades in the meantime. They gave a super shave, but eventually dulled, and I went back to some light honing and trying to improve my lousy x-pattern technique. I bought the Radioshack microscope and a #12000 Kitayama. I couldn't get ANY of the razors sharp worth a damn, and eventually realized that the hone wasn't quite flat.

Lapped again with 800 grit. Tried honing again, but this time, it didn't help -- bevel looked ok in the microscope, but felt dull and gave painful shaves. I went back to using the DE safety razor for several months, but occasionally tried lapping/honing with no real progress. I might as well have been honing on a wooden 2x4". Frustration sets in.

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Back to the forums for research, I stumbled across some old posts warning about 'glazing' the hones. Wow. Makes perfect sense. My Norton was flat and smooth, as I thought it was supposed to be. But I knew something was wrong when I could seemingly do 50 laps on the 4K without any noticeable change. No metal was coming off onto the hone.

This time, I lapped with 220 grit on the 4K side, and 320 grit on the 8K side. The hone's texture was restored, and after about half of the infamous 'Norton pyramid' (plus stropping), I just finished a very comfortable shave. Not quite perfect yet, but I'm closer than ever before.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don't glaze your hones. As I understand it, the Norton lapping stone is supposedly around 200 grit, so don't be afraid to use some lower-grit sandpaper for lapping.

Perhaps I didn't do a good enough job of keeping the waterstone clean with the 800-grit sandpaper, or perhaps 800-grit was too high to be using in the first place? (Some members prefer even higher grits for lapping.) Nevertheless, I think I'll be sticking with lower-grit paper from now on.

Any thoughts or corrections welcome...

Good post! I personally lap the 4K side with 400-600 and the 8k side with 1000-1500. But I finalize my honing on 8K so its gotta be smmmoooooooth.

I lap with the DMT 320 (D8C) and love the results. I do notice that it glazes over rather quickly being that smooth so I lap after each session.

Great post

atm i use 320 grit sandpaper. i tried using higher grit (ie 1000) but the surface felt no smoother and i had problems clogging the stone.

i'm looking into getting a dmt stone as my collection of stones grows

The directions that came with my norton 4k/8k hone said to lap it either with their lapping stone or 600 grit wet/dry. I found the norton needed frequent lapping both to keep it even, and to expose fresh abrasive. Anytime I noticed it getting really slow I could fix it by giving it a few laps on 600 wet/dry. I'm glad I got rid of it. The Norton is an all around aggravating stone to use.

Question: do you lap with your Norton wet or dry?

Same way you hone with it, otherwise the 4k side will suck water and grit into the pores of the hone and promptly clog it again. I usually lapped mine right before starting a honing session.

Originally Posted by mparker762

The directions that came with my norton 4k/8k hone said to lap it either with their lapping stone or 600 grit wet/dry. I found the norton needed frequent lapping both to keep it even, and to expose fresh abrasive. Anytime I noticed it getting really slow I could fix it by giving it a few laps on 600 wet/dry. I'm glad I got rid of it. The Norton is an all around aggravating stone to use.

MParker, What hone do you prefer over the Norton? What do you think of Shaptons? I have neither but Dr. Chris Moss says he prefers the Shaptons.

I sold off nearly all my hones and went with the Shapton line. I've had the 8k and 15k pro hones for nearly a year now, and once I figured them out I got great results. I made the big switch a few months ago, and at this point I've got pretty much the full set from 1k up. All my new Shaptons are glassstones because they're cheaper and I'm not likely to wear them out in my lifetime. They're so fast (and pricey) that I don't really recommend them for newbies, but once you know you're sticking with straights then they're worth the investment. No soaking or extended drying or slurrying or any such foolishness, just spritz on a little water and go, and wipe them off and put them away when you're done. They rarely need lapping, and if you're so inclined (and have the coin) they go up to 30k grit.

It does take a little while to get used to them because they're so aggressive and only need a few laps at any given grit (generally 3-7, depending on how hard the steel is, but they have to be *perfect* laps).

The other downside to Shaptons is very few guys around here use them (quite a few guys seem to have one or two, but don't use them). Chris Moss loves them, I think Joe Lerch uses the 16k Shapton, and maybe one or two other guys use them regularly. Not many though. With hones as with so many other things personal preferences have a lot to do with it.

I'd definitely like to try one of the Shapton hones someday. Has anyone actually purchased the 30,000 grit stone? It's nearly $500! I figure I could put that money towards laser hair removal at that point.

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Three addendums I'd like to make to my original post:

1) As mparker brought up, in addition to the 800-grit paper, I did use 600-grit (as recommended by the manual that comes with the stone). All I can say is that it didn't help with the glazing. Conversely, it might have caused it.

2) I can't say that I'll stick with using 220/320 grit paper in the future, but it was necessary to "de-glaze" the stone. The 600/800 grit paper seemed to work well the first time I used it -- the only problem was the stone eventually glazed over. Nothing is set in stone, so to speak.

3) Not sure that the 8K side was ever a problem. It was mostly the 4K side that glazed and stopped cutting.

Originally Posted by Kyle76

Question: do you lap with your Norton wet or dry?

I soak mine underwater for at least 10-15 minutes, or until I stop seeing those little bubbles coming out the side. Then use copious amounts of water while actually lapping. Naturally, you lap the stone on a flat surface, such as glass.

I'm not sure what would happen if you lapped the stone bone dry, without using any water whatsoever. Dusty mess, perhaps, but maybe the water acts to 'flush' the stone as much as it helps loose material to 'embed' into it? Either way, I'm not going to try...