Thread: Whipped Dog "Quarter Nortons"

Not "too good to be true ..." it is what it is.

A smaller surface means many more strokes. More strokes, for a beginner at least, means more chances to make a "bad" stroke, and put you back to square one. IMHO. save your funds until you can afford a full size stone.

I agree with those who say to save up for full size hones. The small ones make for a lot more strokes which mean a lot more chances of a missed stroke.

Most straight razor blades are about 3" in length; a 2" x 4" inch hone is more than big enough for easy use on blades that size. The full-sized Norton stone is actually excessively big for small knives like straight razors - but boy are they luxurious to use! :-)

Originally Posted by JeffR

Most straight razor blades are about 3" in length; a 2" x 4" inch hone is more than big enough for easy use on blades that size. The full-sized Norton stone is actually excessively big for small knives like straight razors - but boy are they luxurious to use! :-)

As a rule barber hones are 4'x2" minimum. The old barbers I knew back in the '80s mostly had coticules for finishing and they seemed to be coming from the barber supply @ 5x2-1/2". Eschers, which are noted to be for straight razors on the label, are usually 7x1-5/8, 8x2, or the Barber's Delight, Barber's Gem were 6x2. They did make a 10x3 but that was not common AFAIK. Point being that 4x2 seems to be the minimum that manufacturers made for sale. IME a 5" hone is the minimum I'm personally comfortable with and 6 or 7 is better yet. YMMV.

Just gonna throw this out there. But you can get a full size king 1k/6k for about 45 from amazon. You can shave off that. And for about 30 you can get a Chinese 12k from woodcraft.

Not the popular choice but it will work. Its what I use and I get good results.

Originally Posted by Haim

Has anyone had any experience with those?
They are 220/1000, a 4000/8000 and a lapping stone (all nortons), all come from original Norton stones cut in 4.
The size of the honing stones is 1.5"x4".

It fits exactly in my budget, and is exactly the right price for me to buy without paying import charges...
Question is - is it too good to be true?

Honing was difficult for me to learn and I still get frustrated sometimes, and that's with full-sized hones.

I learned most of what I know from videos, and I would be lost if the person doing the instructing said to give a razor 15 laps. I'm not sure that 15 x 4 = 60 laps on a quarter hone would do the same job.

For that reason I wouldn't buy a quarter hone. At least for me, that would be a bad idea.

I learned a lot by honing on 4"x1" DMT's but the most important thing I learned was that hones that size are a waste of time & money as I eventually bought regular size stones & the DMT's sit unused now.

I don't see the need to bait either the Larry or honing trolls here.

Have fun.

1/2 of a Norton would be survivable possibly but aren't they 8 inch stones? Meaning you'll be honing on a 2" stone...even at 10" you'd only have a 2.5" stone....5"+ are all I ever work with otherwise its way slow...a quartered Norton would be a slurry stone in my opinion.