Thread: Honing question

Question for the experienced honer.Is it possible to get a truly keen edge just by using the norton 4000\8000 ? I reistered that Lynn used a 12000 as last polish..I resently ordered the Thiers-Issard stropping paste,is this a desent substitute for the 12000 stone? Or do I need to buy another honingstone?

I used the Norton 4K/8K and a leather strop exclusively for about 5 months and got pretty good shaves. However, about a month ago I purchased some Chromium Oxide and pasted the reverse side of my strop. My shaves are much closer now. I had the opportunity to use a Coticule stone that my friend bought and let me tell you, it put the finest edge on my razor. I placed an order at Vintage Blades last night to get my own Coticule stone. After I get my desired edge with the Norton, I will move to the Coticule, then to the pasted strop, and finally to the leather stop. So from my experience, a Norton 4K/8K and a strop will get you good shaves, but if you want immaculate shaves, get a “finishing stone” such as a Coticule or other 12k stone and some paste. Hope this helps, good luck.

Yep, what mike said - 4k/8k is very good stone and if you can't get good shaves off it it's the honing, not the hone
You may want to check the honing section. I'm going to keep this thread here though, I'm sure other newbies wonder the same thing.
This being said, we recommend that people not try to tackle shaving and honing at the same time and get their first razor honed by somebody else. However there's no reason to postpone honing.

Originally Posted by Mike7120

I used the Norton 4K/8K and a leather strop exclusively for about 5 months and got pretty good shaves. However, about a month ago I purchased some Chromium Oxide and pasted the reverse side of my strop. My shaves are much closer now. I had the opportunity to use a Coticule stone that my friend bought and let me tell you, it put the finest edge on my razor. I placed an order at Vintage Blades last night to get my own Coticule stone. After I get my desired edge with the Norton, I will move to the Coticule, then to the pasted strop, and finally to the leather stop. So from my experience, a Norton 4K/8K and a strop will get you good shaves, but if you want immaculate shaves, get a “finishing stone” such as a Coticule or other 12k stone and some paste. Hope this helps, good luck.

+ 1 for the Coticule. I have one and find it superb. Howard over at The Perfect Edge has good prices and a good selection.

Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Question for the experienced honer.Is it possible to get a truly keen edge just by using the norton 4000\8000 ? I reistered that Lynn used a 12000 as last polish..I resently ordered the Thiers-Issard stropping paste,is this a desent substitute for the 12000 stone? Or do I need to buy another honingstone?

You can get a good enough edge to shave with off a Norton but your face will be a LOT happier if you add a finishing stone to your honing ritual. I use a Shapton 16k and the difference is like night and day...but there are a lot cheaper stones that will do as good. If on a budget the Chinese 12k would be my first choice.

Post your findings about using the TI paste. I've always been curious about that as from what I've heard it was a lot higher micron than the normal Chromium Oxide most folks use.

Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Question for the experienced honer.Is it possible to get a truly keen edge just by using the norton 4000\8000 ? I reistered that Lynn used a 12000 as last polish..I resently ordered the Thiers-Issard stropping paste,is this a desent substitute for the 12000 stone? Or do I need to buy another honingstone?

There's already a lot of good advice in this thread, the Thiers-Issard paste is said to give a polish like a 10K Japanese waterstone so its a step up from the 8K, with the 4K/8K and the paste you should be able to get a good edge on your razor IMHO.

I used to use the Thiers Issard paste and it would improve the edge off a coticule. But now I use Chromium oxide and I find my shave to be smoother. I think the Thiers paste worked very well with the harder or stainless steel blades. It has diamond in the paste and so it cuts better whilst the Chromium smooths better.

Up until last night I used 4k/8k Norton to hone and just stropped before each shave. Going from Track 2 shaves back to a DE and then str8s I was completely happy with the results I obtained from the str8s. It was so much better than the Trak 2s and more interesting than the DEs. Last night I received an Esher stone from Timberland. This morning I ran my W&B 7/8 across it and I have to say the quality of shave improved greatly. I will post a write up on the Esher tonight if I can find the time. If you are new to honing be sure to get a great edge on each hone before moving to the next finest hone in your process. The Esher and Belgian hones will not improve anything unless you have a good, sharp bevel from the previous hones to start with.

+1 for what the other guys said. I have been getting fine shaves off 8K for the past 3 years, but now that I have a Chinese 12K, I find I prefer the smoothness of it.

Just bought a chinese 12 k ...