Originally Posted by
Utopian
Following along the lines of Jimmy, with never meeting a hone I didn't want, I have three 8X3 Norton single grit hones and I did sometimes find it helpful to hone on their 1" sides. Despite this, I still bought four of the 1.5"x8" Nortons from Tools For Working Wood. Though I really like them, realistically with the proper technique using the rolling X stroke there is no benefit to a narrow hone. You can accomplish the same thing on a wide hone by simply pretending that you are honing on a narrow hone. That is, you can just as easily do the rolling X on a wide as a narrow hone.