Are there any charts?
Which scales Norton, Naniwa and King use?
Thanks.
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Are there any charts?
Which scales Norton, Naniwa and King use?
Thanks.
Conversion Chart Abrasives - Grit Sizes
ANSI is what Norton uses , JIS is for the Japanese stones
ANSI is only defined up to 1200.
What about 4000 and 8000 Norton?
Based on the chart, ANSI rating is directly proportional to grit size in microns, so you can extrapolate any ANSI rating. The same appears to be true for JIS.
This chart shows J2000 roughly equal to ANSI 1000.
But I read elsewhere, that for the same grit number, Naniwa stones are finer than Norton. Were they wrong?
I have read suggestions to go from 8k Norton to 8k Naniwa to 12k Naniwa.
Keep in mind that Grit ratings are at best within each series of hones if you start switching series and brand they become meaningless very fast...
I am trying to remember any thread on here (SRP) that mentions stacking a Norton 8k and a Naniwa 8k in a progression and just can't
Actually, the Norton, Naniwa SS and Chosera and the Shapton 8K's results are quite similar. Little different feeling on each stone though.
Have fun,
Lynn
I read in another forum
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=195635
Sounds like you are going largely on the posts of one particular member in that thread. I'm by no means saying he is right or wrong - I don't know because I have not tried using the hones in question together in a progression. I also don't know anything about his honing experience.
I would suggest sticking to advice in posts by people known by reputation, such as the SRP Mentors and/or Mods, or other senior members here with known honing skills.
As far as going from the Norton 8k to the Naniwa 12k, I would assume it would work just fine. There are, however, some hones from different manufacturers that are said to "not play nicely together." Again, not something I have personally experienced (but there are many hones I have not used and many things I have not yet experienced).
I just wish there was a good way to cross-reference different scales without any confusion.
I don't know about grit microns and whatnot, but I can tell you for certain that going from a Norton 8k to a Naniwa 12k works just fine.
I do it all the time.
The confusion only comes into it if you expect specific outcomes based solely on given grit ratings. If you can lay aside the expectation that two different hones can be easily compared by grit rating alone then I think that will alleviate some of the grit rating scale confusion for you
As far as trying to help answer your first question, this article might widen your horizons a little on that specific subject of grit rating relating to grit particle size Formulae For Converting Between Grit and Microns - Straight Razor Place Wiki
Yes, this puts things in context. There is only one person with very limited experience honing, and just as limited variation of hones, who is saying that he does this and it works well for him. In another month or three he may have very different way of doing things too.
Then there's somebody else just making something up because they couldn't find the answer for it.
I don't see how that relates to any comparison of fineness or grits of these hones.
I think it's best if you take a step back and reevaluate everything that has been said on the subject, i.e. even if you can compare grit numbers directly you still will know nothing relevant about how the hones will compare when sharpening razors.
So, I took data from:
Conversion Chart Abrasives - Grit Sizes
I plotted the relationship between the ANSI grit number and micron size in Excel.
My results differ from what I found in:
Formulae For Converting Between Grit and Microns - Straight Razor Place Wiki
(Or is it for the Japanese scale? I can't tell.)
I got for ANSI:
Grit = 4999 * Microns ^ (-0.789)
Microns = 46042 * Grit ^ (-1.257)
I really think you are WAY too worried about grit size. As Hoglagoo said above, the grit size is NOT a full picture of how a hone will cut steel.
This is because the underlying data is different. From your source ANSI 1200 corresponds to 5u, on the sources from the wiki 1200 corresponds to 15u. Same thing with the rest.
You should figure out how to reconcile the original data before moving to further manipulation.
This site shows still different numbers.
Just Ask Jeff: How are grit/mesh/micron related and what is what?
Too much confusion...
Are there any official ANSI sources?
I am not too worried about the grit size at this point. I just don't like confusion too much.
Yes, there is only one official source, here's their webpage: American National Standards Institute - ANSI
The ANSI want you to buy the standards, even in electronic form. That's a racket in my opinion. They should be educating people about the standards, not charging money for it. No wonder there is so much confusion around.
So I guess, we will never know what the true numbers are unless someone wants to buy the document(s).
Here is another site with still different numbers.
http://www.washingtonmills.com/docum...it-sizes-ansi/
They are a 501c3 private not for profit organization with 22 million USD annual budget. I don't see why they should give stuff away for free, it's entirely up to them to do so or not.
If it were a government agency with the money paid by the taxpayers, this would be publicly available, but that's not the case.
So I guess we'll just have ignorant taxpayers.
Well, if they don't want to pay for the knowledge...
For example a non-for-profit organization got many thousands of dollars in exchange of educating me. I pay for most books, magazines, and newspapers I read, I think it's pretty much the same thing with the ANSI standards.
My local public library is free to use, but it gets funded by taxes. The research that the federal government pays for is publicly available for free on the internet (unless it's secret), but it still costs tax money to produce.
That's just the way things are.
I say, do away with ANSI scale and all other scales. Provide grit size in microns. Problem solved. I think I personally would much prefer it this way. These scales do not serve any good purpose and only add to confusion and add another layer of complexity.
Does Norton have a web site that provides grit info? Are there datasheets or specifications for their stones?
Thanks.
There's a difference between not paying taxes, being paid by taxes, and being a government entity. There are plenty of businesses that are exempt from paying various taxes, as well as plenty who receive direct funding by the government, yet none of them is required, or supposed to give away their product to everybody.
Exempt Purposes - Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)
I think it would be nice if everybody in US would switch to using the metric system of units, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
I have put on a little work about size distribution, particle sizes and how these are being measured for grit rating. Maybe someone will find it useful
Most of us take grit size with a grain of salt. Besides all of the permormance variable, friability, sintered, type of resin etc. Then the grit size itself is a moot point altogether depending on how the manufactures seperate the particles. i.e a 5 micron particle can pass through a sieve and be 10 mcrons long. As long as manufactures use their own methods of grading, there will never be truthful standard and realistically as long as the particles are bound in stone it would be misleading anyway.
All part the fun of trying out new hones.
Am I the only one wondering "why is this important?" I mean, is there some practical application? I would think people's first hand experiences and direct comparisons of hones would be more important than raw numbers about grit size. Or am I missing something?
The main application is in mixing stones from different manufacturers. I know it's not recommended, but sometimes you can find better deals by going this route.
While the raw grit size is not everything, it is a good starting point. Otherwise, why even have it at all? We can just call them stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, etc.
That explains why you have such a hard time. Unfortunately going this route you will spend more money than you need to on worse honing system than you can get if you just stick to a standard recommendations. But it's your money and your time figuring it out.
Actually, since you can't get even the 'starting point' you'll never be able to get any further even if you could go to the more complex issues beyond grit size.
Incidentally efficiently honing straight razors is a stage1 (removing of chips and establishing a bevel), stage2 (sharpening the bevel), and stage3 (polishing the bevel) process. You can pick any hone from a number of possibiulities for each stage, but if you stick to a single system you will have much better results than by mixing and matching.
But don't take my word for it - try it yourself and a year and few hundred dollars later you can tell us if you found something different from what the rest of us did.
When something is not recommended, that recommendation is based on someone's experience or the experience of several people. As Gugi said, please do feel free to experiment, and please do share your experiences. But, as he also said, you will have to actually use the hones instead of just reading about one of the numerous factors (grit size) that makes them what they are.
Ok, so why have grit sizes at all? We can just switch to color coding.
If there is no common reference between "stage 2" stones from different manufacturers, and the stones are all different, how do you know which is a better deal, unless you buy them all and compare.
If someone wants to add to the stones they already have, and there is no common reference, they might have a hard time finding a right stone or have to pay a top dollar to go with a specific manufacturer, if that manufacturer is still in business.
May be because there's a lot of honers that are too insecure in their masculinity to use the pink hone?
'Better deal' is highly subjective so the only way to determine this is to buy them and compare. Yes, lack of transferability is a royal pain.
For most people the norton set is the best deal. For me the naniwa set is the best deal.
I agree. Some people pay hundreds of dollars for a hone that Norton made years ago but it no longer produces. Others pay hundreds of dollars for hones that were mined and sold by a german company called Escher when they existed over 60 years ago. Yet others pay hundreds of dollars for hones that are being mined by Ardennes in belgium... And some use a couple of $5 slipstones and a barber hone or two to hone the $3 razors they've bought at garage sales to shave with them.
There are plenty of choices in all kinds of price ranges. Generally trying to go as cheap as possible means that you pay the price in learning effort and some time in end results too.
How do you know? You come somewhere like SRP and read up on what people use and what results they get.
The modern synthetics are so good you can't really go wrong with any of them - Norton, Shapton or Naniwa. Take your pick and learn how to use them.
I have the Shaptons and the Naniwas and I have definitely found they work better as a set. Mixing and matching just doesn't work as well.
In terms of why have grit sizes at all, it's so you can tell the stones apart. But the 8k shapton and naniwa edges are pretty comparable IMO. I think you may be making this more complex than it needs to be and you're not going to save any money approaching things this way.
If you want to mix and match, it's your money I guess. But most likely you'll end up spending more money than you need to and still coming back to one complete set that you really like.
I seem to be using the Shaptons more than anything at the moment, but I went through a stage a few months back of using the naniwas pretty much exclusively. Just depends on the blades I'm honing really!
yes it would be fine if we used micron ratings instead of these more bizarre 'grit' scales. but even if we were talking about the same abrasive material, of the same shape, in the same binder material, one would still have to consider the distribution of particle sizes, as they wont all be magically the same size.
hopefully they wouldnt vary too much, but by saying something is 5 micron you would hope that what you are saying is that it is 5 micron or smaller. more realistically you are saying that say 95% of particles are 5 micron or smaller. how large is the largest particle, what percentage makes it above 10 microns, what percentage makes it below 1 micron?
take a look at statistics, and distribution curves and get a sense for how even after all other variables/differences are removed (abrasive material, shape, binder material,...), providing a single micron measurement for what is actually a distribution is STILL only so useful. and i wouldn't necessarily assume a Normal Distribution for particle sizes, with the same variance.
i'm pretty sure that these other standards like JIS or the standard provided by ANSI have something to say on the subject of particle size distributions, maximum particle sizes etc. so while the two standards differ, it may be more useful to have our manufacturers use them than for them to all come up with their own idea of what "micron" their abrasive mix is.
like everyone has said before: there are lots and lots of variables here, and the ONLY measure that matters is the use of the product in the real world.