I've been breaking myself in on a 4K/8K Norton and have managed to get a reasonable shave out of it - a little rough - but increasingly better. I just started with the pyramid method and it seems to work quite well.

And this week I finally received my Naniwa 12K Super Stone. WOW. It makes a huge difference. I can now say that I have a sharp razor. No more feelings of scraping or pulling, just a smooth glide. At first I thought maybe I'd completely killed the edge and it wasn't cutting at all, but no - it was doing its thing.

Any of you guys out there still wrestling with the Norton only should seriously consider getting yourselves a nice finishing stone. It makes a world of a difference.

I also tried lathering my strop and it also gave a great result - much softer now.