Thread: Norton Hones

As a beginner I am wanting to practice honing an old Solingen razor I picked up at a flea market very cheap. I have several large Norton hones (very fine grits.) These were used with oil, but everyone talks of using water stone. Could these work?

Rickster

What grit?

What is considered "Fine" for knives is usually the starting point for razors.

Originally Posted by Rickster

As a beginner I am wanting to practice honing an old Solingen razor I picked up at a flea market very cheap. I have several large Norton hones (very fine grits.) These were used with oil, but everyone talks of using water stone. Could these work?

Rickster

Not really. Get a Norton 4000/8000 combo and practice with it. Great idea to get a "practice" razor. I was told to do the same and I followed that advice. Lynn used to shave off of a 8000 Norton. Take your time and have fun with it. Good luck.

I have one of the oilstone Nortons that I think you are talking about and after really cleaning it up I've decided it's just as mentioned above...good for knives but that's about it. I've got the fine oilstone and haven't even used it as it's really too coarse even for my knives...unless I get a new one that I need to set the edge on. Norton's waterstones are really much more suited for razors, the oilstones are meant for knives and other tools.

Originally Posted by BanjoTom

Not really. Get a Norton 4000/8000 combo and practice with it. Great idea to get a "practice" razor. I was told to do the same and I followed that advice. Lynn used to shave off of a 8000 Norton. Take your time and have fun with it. Good luck.

I'm shaving off a Norton 4/8. Shaves are comfortable and close. My only advise would be to lap the stone before you do anything. I lapped mine with some wet 400 grit on the kitchen (faux granite) counter following the tips found here: Hone Lapping 101 - Straight Razor Place Wiki

My Norton 4/8 came with a coating of something and wasn't very flat. After the above it works fine for it's intended purposes.

There are four of them in the set, still in the box when I got them from an old machine shop. They were used to lap polished metal parts. Can't find the exact number match on the Norton website (pretty old) but best I can tell they range from about 1000-10,000 grit. They were labeled "oil stones".

Photos always help, if you can.

Will try to get some pics tonight and post. Thanks for all the replies so far.

Here are three of the finer hones, . The one at the bottom is the finest, a very hard slate grey one and the top one being the most course. Even the top one will barely file a fingernail!

Thanks for all the input. I'm looking into water stones anyway, but thought these might work for starters.file:///C:/Users/Rick/Pictures/HPIM1713.JPG

(Hope this works!)

Originally Posted by Rickster

Here are three of the finer hones, . The one at the bottom is the finest, a very hard slate grey one and the top one being the most course. Even the top one will barely file a fingernail!

Thanks for all the input. I'm looking into water stones anyway, but thought these might work for starters.file:///C:/Users/Rick/Pictures/HPIM1713.JPG

(Hope this works!)

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Upload it here or upload it to an image hosting website and link to it.