Thread: Scratch pattern off Norton 8k seems too rough

Lap it and bevel the edges.

Take Roy up on his offer,

Or if you want to learn how to hone, you will have to do a little homework. And read the honing primer in the Honing Forum, 2nd thread.Then re-read the whole Second Try at Honing thread and compare your edges to the photos of edges at the various grits in the progression.

There is nothing wrong with your stones, that a good lapping would not fix. When ever you suspect the slightest problem with a hone, lap it.

Again, you are not spending enough time on each hone and your bevel is not fully set.

You guys are turning this into an ego thing when it never was. I had a simple question whether the scratch pattern I was getting off my 8k was consistent or not.

So simple experiment. Freshly lapped hone



Edge bevel after 25 heel forward passes (weight of razor only)



Edge bevel after 25 toe forward passes (weight of razor only)



The scratch pattern reverses telling me that its the 8k hone giving me the scratch pattern Ive been showing since the very beginning.

If your 8k is leaving worse scratches than your 4k and you have done what you have said I would toss it in the trash and get another.

8k stones are cheap........

No 'Ego thing' here. I made my offer so that you could see what the scratch pattern would be coming off of well lapped and used hones that have honed hundreds of razors and are of the same make as yours.

The offer stands.

While he will admit that the camera angle isn't the best, please watch this about lapping Norton Hones. Pay particular attention to when he uses his fingernail to scratch the side and then the honing surface.

If i had a norton 8k id post pics to compare but no nortons. Anyone what to try this that has one?

Are all your honing strokes” weight of the blade?”

Forget weight of the blade. You have so much deep stria on that bevel now if you do lite pressure laps, you are just polishing the tops of the land of the deeper stria, the groove is still there.

25 light laps is not a test, a stone needs to cut and in your case cut deep enough to remove previous stria.

If you want to do a test on the 8k do 40 laps with pressure, (2 sets of 20) and 20 more with lite pressure. Then take a photo.

But why would the direction change then. If the stria were already here and I was just polishing the tops, then you'd expect the direction to stay the same

Just a thought.... What are you placing the stone on when your honing? Since this is a 4/8 combo stone (I think you said?) that means the 8 side may be laying in a puddle of what ever was left over from previous grits.
It wont matter how many times you lap the 8k side if you keep setting it back down atop grit washed down from a courser hone.
Other than the possibility of diamonds simply falling out of your DMT, or the stone just being a dud, I cant think of any other reasons it would leave striations behind. I've never seen such a thing from a Norton 8k

That does happen if I place the 4k/8k in a stoneholder, but for this try I went straight from the sink, where I lapped it, to where I did the test so the 8k was never on the downside. Just to be specific, I am getting a mirror finish as I said in my original post. The striations only show up when you hold the edge at a specific angle with the light. I didn't know if this was normal behavior which was why I made the thread. For all I know most ppl get similar results off their 8k, they just don't magnify it and play with the light angle. This is the same edge with different lighting

Originally Posted by jag213

You guys are turning this into an ego thing when it never was. I had a simple question whether the scratch pattern I was getting off my 8k was consistent or not.

The scratch pattern reverses telling me that its the 8k hone giving me the scratch pattern Ive been showing since the very beginning.

There still seems to be some deeper scratches that didn't get worked out with the rest of them. I feel like I hit a particularly hard piece of grit every now and then on the 8k even after lapping it. Don't know if this is expected behavior or caused by something else (such as an embedded diamond piece as some have pointed out

The Norton 8k is a very soft stone & easy to embed particles into the surface especially if using pressure when lapping.
So if a light lap does not remove this hard piece of grit your stone is faulty. It may come good if you take 1/8" of the surface. If not get another stone.
This is assuming those scratches are not there @ 4k