Thread: Norton 8K

So I've recently started honing and I've got a small coticle, two PHIGS, what is suspected to be a LI, and a Norton 1k and the 4/8k combo. I've tried all the "finishing" stones and I find that the shave coming straight off the Norton 8K then CroX and strop gives me the most comfortable shave. Am I using the finishers wrong? The PHIG's and LI could very well not be in the finishing grit range, I get that, however the Coti edge is also not as comfortable as the Norton. I understand that scratch pattern is not an indicator of sharp/smoothness when natural hones are used but I get a mirror finish on the bevel with the 8K and scratches with the Coti. Any suggestions on how to properly use the Coti to finish a razor would be greatly appreciated. I am assuming the issue is with me as I'm new at this.

Thanks in advance, Mike

Nope not necessarily you. The coti may simply not be up to the task.

I assume you've tried the coti with water only after the 8k ?

Mike,
I only have 3 years into the honing & have never used a paste/powder/Crox, but I have used the PHIG quite a bit on about 8 different razors, good to great shaves were achieved. The PHIG is a slow finisher. There are some threads attached to this page, read as much as you can, to get as much as you can, out of the PHIG.
Chinese Guangxi Hones - Straight Razor Place Wiki

My finisher now is a coticle. It's a natural stone, so there is a for sure a slight difference in all , from stone to stone. There is for sure a learning curve with the coticle. Different steels have required me to stretch my routine to sometimes 40+ strokes, different pressure; while some of my razors have beeen finished on the coticle with as little as 20 strokes with the razors weight only.

Enjoy the honing the razor & don't see it as a task that must be accomplished. To me the coticle is a new journey with each razor.

PHIG's are sometimes lower than 8K & can take over 100 strokes per side to finish. Coti's have been my honing Achilles' heal, I've been through about 5 of them without satisfaction & I had given up on them until I borrowed a good one from a online friend. What you have to keep in mind is that you are talking about natural stones & their grit is unknown, which is why I use synthetic stones all the way to finisher...then I use a natural.

Yes I've tried the Coti after the 8K with water only. I find that the Coti removes the mirror finish that I get from the 8K. I've also tried coming off the 8K and raising a slurry on the Coti then rinsing that off and using water only.

The PHIG has worked the best as a finisher so far. I'm a little uncertain when a finishing hone is do its job. The Bevel setter is done once the blade easily cuts arm hair at skin level alone the length of the blade. The 4K is done once I have removed the 1K scratch pattern and the edge feels better and will pick up hair above skin level. The 8K puts a mirror finish on the bevel, so what does the finisher do and how do you folks determine when that step in the progression is complete?

I was also going through these tests of the different finishers without using CROx at the end, just strop, just to keep things even and to give me a feeling of what the different edges feel like.

You can only find out a naturals potential by using it in different ways and test shaving. My phig never delivered but I gave up on it too quickly and will revisit it soon. My coti was easy, my nakayama asagi took me a month to get a very good but not great edge, my shuobudani 100 stone I got the sharpest edge from any stone ever in 3 tries, shavette sharp and smooth. My stones I finish with slight slurry. Water only hasn't done it for me yet. And that may well be my skills need improvement. One hour to learn and a lifetime to master.

So what does the bevel look like once your done on the finishing stone? Is there a small scratch pattern left from the natural, as opposed to the mirror finish you get from the 8K? I'm going to systematically take one natural at a time and use it in different ways until I figure it out.

Bevel looks scratchy. The theory I heard is the particles leave shallow scratches. The only thing I looked for when I used my scope was a well defined bevel. Shallow scratches finer than 1k arent felt IMO. You arelooking for the natural feel which wwhendone correctly is smoother than a synthetic. Naturals are harder to get an hht to pass before stropping. But they cut great when its dialed in.

Mike,
How long have you been honing and how many razors have you honed?

I suspect you may have three separate problems, one is sharpness, the other is how to finish on a natural and third is stone prep.

The shiny, mirrored bevel you are seeing at the 8k level is not so shiny under magnification that is why it is not an indicator of keenness. 95% of your honing is done at the 1K level. Your edge should be hair popping mid height at 1k. When you think you are done at 1k a few more light pressure polishing laps will pay big dividends in your edge. You sharpen at 1k, everything else is polishing, refining the edge. This is where experience comes in, one of the biggest mistakes new honers make, is not having a truly completely sharp edge at 1k before going to the next stone in progression. You are then chasing a sharp edge and the finishing stone gets the blame.

Even a dull edge can cut arm hair at the base.

Natural stones are completely different from synthetics, in that they are all different from each other. Of the naturals, Coticules seem to be the most variant and difficult to master. Generally naturals take more laps, some many more than synthetics. I believe because, Coticules are not inherently high grit stones, but may be capable of producing a higher grit finish in qualified hands.

One of the things you will learn with Coticule is the use of slurry, it is not a case of with slurry or without. Slowly thinning slurry, doing laps with decreased pressure on the blade, until you are finishing with water alone and weight of the blade pressure, will produce a keen edge by breaking down the slurry and polishing the edge. Even then, your Coticule may not be of sufficient fineness to produce the desired edge. There is much written on Coticules by those more experienced with just this stone, probably more that any other stone.

Going from a synthetic to a natural stone can be a steep and unforgiving learning curve as synthetics can seem somewhat foolproof to use. It’s like learning to drive with an automatic and now you are thrown in to a temperamental antique sports car, with standard shift gearbox and manual brakes on a curvy mountain road.

One of the best things about Coticules is that in mastering the stone you will learn a great deal about honing.

Lastly Chinese stones benefit from proper stone prep, it is possibly the cause of much of its criticism. They are much like preparing an Arkansas finisher. I finish Arks & Chinese stones with Hard Arks the finer and harder the better, then run some hard steel on them to produce a glass like smooth finish. Be careful they will shred a DMT.

Learning to hone can be a long and windy road, you have just come to the first intersection.

Enjoy the ride.

@ Euclid440: I haven't been honing very long, but I'm patiant and persistant (If I wasn't my incredibly understanding wife would never have married me) and I've made good progress. I have honed to "shavable" at least 5 razors. I define "shavable" as being able to shave comfortably, but with some skipping on the tougher areas (chin). Basically the reason I started this thread was that the shave tests I was doing indicated that coming off the 8K gave me the best shave of the bunch. I also used a DE blade AND a professionally honed blade as a baseline for my tests. I tried the slurry dilution with the Coti and although it didn't produce the results I know the stone is capable of I LOVED the art of it. I really like the natural stones for some reason, with all their variablity and temperamental nature there is just something about them that I am attracted to. I find honing so relaxing, everything just drops away and I'm not thinking about the thousand of other things going on at work/life/home etc. At any rate I'm glad that I'm on the honing road and know that between practice and the advice of you more experienced users I'll all good. I have ordered a 40X loupe and I'm hoping that can shed some light on the bevel that I can't get with my little magnifying glass. I'm pretty confident that my inexperience is the biggest issue and started this thread to get an idea of how others are using the natural finishers (i.e. pressure, slurry, not slurry etc). I'm going to take another shot at the coti soon. Thanks for the 1K cut above the skin comment, I haven't tried that test at the 1K level and will get it there before moving on.

What exactly do you do to lapp and prep a C12K? The two that I have are both very smooth, but I'd like to know and maybe I'll run them through your process before going abck to them.

Thanks again for your help.