Thread: Please

Hi there,
I need to ask you guys something. I recently bought a Norton Water Stone 220/1000, a 4000/8000, a Norton Flattening Stone and a Norton Prep Stone for Water Stone.
I want to know if I need to do anything with then before using. Is there any special preparation procedure?
How do I use this Prep Stone and in which stone should I use it?
Just one more thing, I still have no strop and I want to buy my first one. I would appreciate if you guys could recomend any. Considering I'm a brazilian it's kinda expensive so I want to buy a good one that I can use for a long time.

Thanks.
Alexandre Kerger

Welcome Alexandre, Tony Miller, He is a member here. He hand makes the best strops. Look him up under the members list. As for the stones, You will need to lap your stones first. Draw lines on the stones with a pencil, and then, using a flat surface and wet, dry sand paper, with the paper wet. Rub the stones, in a figure eight motion until you do not see the grid lines anymore. I use 400 grit on the 1000, 800 grit on the 4000, and 1000 on the 8000. The 220 you won't use on razors. The 1000 is used for chip removal, and reseting an edge, heavy type work, the 4000/8000 is the work horse. go to the library section on the home page and search pyramid. As to the flattening and prep stone, I don't own one of these, so I can't help there. Good luck and let us know how you are doing.

Phil

Hi Alexandre
Tony here does quality strops and there are also Dovo strops that get my quality vote.

PuFF