How do you use your Norton

I am curious as to how you use your Norton 8K with regard to moisture?
I was using it soaked initially, because I had just soaked the 4K side and was removing a lot of steel from the edge trying to get it back to some degree of sharp. So the 4K was already pretty well saturated.

Once I was done with the 4K, I would spray water on the 8K with a spray bottle keeping it quite wet. This got a little monotonous and/or I got lazy so I sprayed less frequently. The hone seemed to work just fine as long as it was “wet”. I know the instructions say it only needs light water and not actual soak time. But that’s a little ambiguous.

Now that I’m striving for that near perfect edge I tried just spraying the surface lightly, so that the water would absorb into the hone making the color just a little darker. This worked fine as well…..
I seem to be able to get a more keen edge now (now that the edge has already been razor sharp, just not shave sharp) with the dry hone.
I’m using 1-3 extremely light swipes per side of the blade on the dry 8K and then to the strop for about 50-count and then to “test”.
Has anyone else found that using the 8K dry for the slight touch-up been successful?

About 20 minutes before honing I put my 4k/8k in a tray of water so the entire thing is covered. When I hone if I'm just doing one razor I don't have to add any more water to the 8K. If I'm doing more than one I keep a sponge handy and drizzle a little water on the stone every other razor. That seems to work good for me.

Funny you mentioned the sponge.. I just figured that out this evening.
I took a damp sponge and just moistened the hone before each set... great minds think alike

I leave mine in water all the time as I am usually doing some honing on a daily basis. When using it, I keep it on a SpongeBob SquarePants pad under a towel and have a little cream pitcher standing by to keep it moist.

So if I gather correctly Lynn,
You prefer to use the 8K side quite moist? Maybe there isn't a real difference all in all. The "destructions" (because that’s what directions are usually good for) that come with the hone say it just needs a light moisture so It’s obviously not dependant on the water the way natural hones are. I was just curious of some one has made a similar observation with their hone.
Thanks

I put the entire Norton hone in a breadpan full of water for about 30 minutes before I use it. I keep a small bowl with water on the table next to me as I hone, and dip my fingers in and drizzle some on the hone surface as I think needed. I like to see a "moving wave" in front of the blade as I hone ......

Lynn's right. The Norton 4k/8k ought to be immersed for about 20 minutes prior to use. I keep mine underwater all the time because I use it so often with all the eBay traffic through my mailbox! To keep the nasties away, I add one or two drops of medicine chest iodine to the water.

Like Lynn, I hone with the stone on a towel on my thigh while sitting. I keep a plastic sports bottle of water nearby and when the stone gets a bit dry to the point where the slurry thickens too much, I add a couple of drops of water.

That brings up a basic point. BASIC POINT ---> It is the muddy, slurry action of the waterstone that imparts the cutting abrasive action to the steel. With a waterstone, it is engineered to let the tiny bits of stone go into a slurry. No water, no slurry, bad .... The stone will be more prone to dammage.

This is a bit different than with novaculite .... Arkansas stones. With novaculite, the stone does most of the cutting and the application of oil/kerosene/whatever is meant to float the abraded bits of metal to keep them from clogging the cutting action of the stone.

A guy needs to know his stones ;=)

Correctomundo.....I actually keep a film of water on both the 4K and 8K sides when in use.