Thread: A Couple Norton Questions

Hello all,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmastime! I know I did, receiving a set of new Norton hones . Surprisingly enough, I don't have any experience with the Nortons, but I have worked previously with Naniwas and coticules. I thought I should ask a couple questions that came to mind before I attempt to lap and use my new hones.

1. Should I soak the Nortons prior to lapping them, or can you just put them directly under running water like other hones? Oh, and I'm using a DMT 8C for lapping...

2. This seemed a little confusing to me, especially considering that I've been reading about Nortons at SRP for over 2 years - The instructions say that no considerable soaking is required to use these hones. It even says all you need for the 8K is to spray some water on top and that's it! This seems to go against everything I've learned about these stones, which I always thought needed to be soaked for a period of time before use. So, to you experienced Norton fans, what should I do? If I'm to soak them before use how long should I wait?

Thanks guys,

Ryan

Hey Ryan. I usually soak mine for about 15mins before using and then just keep it wet as I go along for the 4k side. Then when I move on to the 8k side I just keep it spritzed with my spray bottle. Hope this helps. And yes I did soak mine for 15mins before lapping them as well.

I soaked mine also and ran them under running water when I lapped them.

Thanks guys.

I guess at this point I'd like to know where the prolonged soaking routine came from if the instructions say otherwise. I'm thinking that someone discovered that maybe they work better if soaked longer? Or perhaps the newer stones differ somehow from the older ones?

Norton waterstones run 220,1k, 4k, & 8k the lower the grit the more soaking time...

Your 8k side requires no soaking, where the 4k side works better with about 15 minutes, 1k works best with 20 minutes plus and 220 it doesn't matter how long you soak it it still needs more

So the tendency since most people have the double sided stones instead of the single grit stones is to recommend 15+ minutes for everything...

Hope that helped

Thanks for the breakdown, Glen. And I was going to address the issue of the double sided hones too

It seems the consensus is to soak before lapping, which of course will be stage 1. Thanks guys, I'll let you know how it goes.

You know, it's a good thing I kept doing my homework instead of diving right in with my Nortons.....
I was reading a post the other day (from Lynn) stating that the new Nortons, specifically the 4k, are grainy and require extra lapping -and you may have to take off up to 1/8" to get past this!!

This seems like a lot, especially for the combo stone where you don't have as much material to begin with. Is this really necessary? How smooth should a 4k be?

I guess it's hard to say what the surface should feel like if you've never felt one that is ready to go....

Originally Posted by Ryan82

You know, it's a good thing I kept doing my homework instead of diving right in with my Nortons.....
I was reading a post the other day (from Lynn) stating that the new Nortons, specifically the 4k, are grainy and require extra lapping -and you may have to take off up to 1/8" to get past this!!

This seems like a lot, especially for the combo stone where you don't have as much material to begin with. Is this really necessary? How smooth should a 4k be?

I guess it's hard to say what the surface should feel like if you've never felt one that is ready to go....

True! When I first lapped my 4K/8K combo, I was scared to take off too much stone on the 4K side. I didn't want to waste hone. This might sound silly, but I wound up taking off more than I wanted to, but not nearly as much as I thought I would.

When you're done, the 4K side will feel smooth but not as slick as the 8K side.

You shouldn't feel any bumps or pieces of grit, and your razor won't make any "pinging" or ringing sounds as you move it across the face of the 4K side.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

You know, it's a good thing I kept doing my homework instead of diving right in with my Nortons.....
I was reading a post the other day (from Lynn) stating that the new Nortons, specifically the 4k, are grainy and require extra lapping -and you may have to take off up to 1/8" to get past this!!

This seems like a lot, especially for the combo stone where you don't have as much material to begin with. Is this really necessary? How smooth should a 4k be?

I guess it's hard to say what the surface should feel like if you've never felt one that is ready to go....

Ryan,

I still wear out a couple Norton 4K/8k's per year by using the white or 4K side all the way down to the 8K side. You get the best results on the 4K side when it is totally smooth. You will be able to feel the difference when you get past the graininess. When I first started using Norton's this was not the case, but they changed where they were manufactured about six years or so ago, I think, and since then this has been the routine. I have asked the Norton people about this a ton and never really got a straight forward answer.

Have fun,

Lynn

Originally Posted by Ryan82

You know, it's a good thing I kept doing my homework instead of diving right in with my Nortons.....
I was reading a post the other day (from Lynn) stating that the new Nortons, specifically the 4k, are grainy and require extra lapping -and you may have to take off up to 1/8" to get past this!!

This seems like a lot, especially for the combo stone where you don't have as much material to begin with. Is this really necessary? How smooth should a 4k be?

I guess it's hard to say what the surface should feel like if you've never felt one that is ready to go....

When I first tried my Norton I lapped it as much as I thought it should be lapped. It passed the pencil grid test after all, so that should be good enough, right? I soaked the stone in water and had a go at my razor using the pyramid method that I had researched on SRP. BTW, the razor was a brand new TI that didn't seem to be shaving too smoothly. By this point you should have a sense that I was in the process of making EVERY noob mistake possible in the span of about a day.

To get to the point, I succeeded in making my marginal TI completely unusable. The happy ending happens because about this same time I figured out that I lived about 15-20 minutes from Lynn. I went to Lynn's house and we looked at my edge under a microscope. You have no doubt seen those Japanese woodworking saws with the really aggressive angled teeth? Well, it looked sort of like that. To his credit, Lynn said something like "That doesn't look too comfortable". Using a properly lapped Norton he fixed it in about as much time as it takes to talk about it.

Now, I wouldn't discount Lynn's skill at all in this story. My only point is that there was a world of difference between his stone and mine. I went home and lapped my 4k side mercilessly until it was pretty smooth. Like you, initially I didn't want to "waste it" but it became apparent that the stone was worthless to me if I didn't prepare it properly.