destined to be hotly debated...

[cyrano138]

this subject is sort of being continued from another thread:

feel free to weigh in with a simple yes or no, or be more detailed if you like.

for those of you who've ordered a norton stone, did it require work before it was ready to be used for honing?

one fellow wrote in the other thread that the two stones he ordered needed work while another guy said his needed none. getting one in the mail tomorrow and i'm curious what my chances are of getting started honing tomorrow. thanks!

[superfly]

OK, the flat hone guy's opinion: Take thick glass plate 35/35 cm (get it at your locall glass suply), stick a sheat of 800-1000 high quality sandpaper with double stick tape, load it with water, and start lapping the stone with 8-figured motion. before that, you can draw with a pencil parralel lines to both surfaces of the stone. When they are gone, your stone is "flat". Now, the point I of this action is more to smooth the factory surface then to flatten the stone, which might be a bit coarse for razor use. It will check the flattness of the hone, too, so you are all set...

Nenad

[Rob]

I never did anything to my norton and it hones just fine.

[randydance062449]

It never hurts to play it safe.

[Lynn]

I'm on my 5th Norton and have not had to do anything with any of them when they were new. I wish they would have had that flattening stone when I bought my first one as it is a dream to use once one gets gunked up. Keeps the stone very flat and clean with miminal effort.

Lynn

[mparker762]

Mine required a fair amount of honing to get it flat, and I'm still not quite convinced that it's flat enough. Even though it passes the pencil test there are still a few places where there is more resistance during the stroke.

[gfoster]

I'm a total noob to honing but I didn't flatten my norton prior to using it. Hope I didn't mess anything up, but I did manage to get a razor from dull to shaving sharp using it so I must not have done too badly.

-- Gary F.

[thebigspendur]

I used mine out of the box for quite awhile before I invested in a honing plate. After lapping I found it just seemed to do a better job. Not that it didn't do a great job before lapping but its just a matter of degree. But later on it will have to be lapped to keep it straight.

[threeputt]

Mine was like honing on a concrete driveway before lapping, the 4k side anyway. It was flat on the broader scale, but way too coarse feeling. After smoothing out, it was fine.

Jeff

[xman]

Mine was fine from the go. Six months of moderate/light use and a quick lapping and it's back pretty much the same as it came out of the box.

X