Thread: New Hone

Hello everyone I'm new to this site, and I must say it has a lot of info. I just purchased a Norton 4000/8000 and was wondering is this a good stone for the beginner? I have four razors two I sending out to get sharpened and two that I'm going to practice with. I have a new colonel conk that is really nice and I pick up two from ebay and one out of an antique shop all are in great condition. Please give advice thanks.
Tome

Tome, that's the best hone to hone razors from scratch with. Make sure you lap it and round off the edges before starting to hone. Read up on the help files and don't forget that our forums have a very good search function. Best of luck and enjoy

Please explain lapping the stone or guide me to the place where I can read about it.
Tome

Do an advanced search in the Hones forum with lapping as the key word. Just searching the thread titles yielded 20 threads on that particular topic. I'll give you some 411 anyways...
-Lapping a stone is the process of making sure it's perfectly flat.
-The brainless process is getting the Norton Lapping Plate and just following the instructions
-You can also get a 12x12" glass/marble/granite tile (but not ceramic), get it wet, slap on a sheet of wet 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, pencil draw a 3x5 grid on the surface of the hone after soaking it for 15min and move it in a figure-8 pattern until the grid disappears. Repeat the process until it disappears in a few strokes, turn the stone over and do the same.
-The first time around you should also round off the edges of the hone.
-I lap my Norton after every 2-3 razors, which is not much of a hassle for me as I also use the 1000 grit sandpaper as an initial honing shortcut.