Thread: norton or shaptom

if you were going to buy a hone would it be a norton 4000 8000 or a shapton . what grit shapton would you buy if shapton would be your choice.

michael

What do you plan on doing with it/them?

I started out with the Norton. I have Shaptons, Eschers, coticules as well as others and if I had it to do over again I would still start out with Norton. I think they are easier to learn on and I still use and like them for some razors. The only thing I would've done differently was buy single grits instead of the 4/8 combo. I did sell my combo stones and replace them with the singles after awhile. So for starting out I would get a DMT D8C for lapping and serious chips, a D8E for setting bevels and the single grit 4 and 8 Nortons for honing. For finishing a Shapton `16K glass or for a lot less money a Chinese 12K. My opinion FWIW

Norton combo. You need two shaptons to do the same job so twice the cost plus a bit. The Nortons are also quite easy to learn on and use.

They are easier to learn on mostly, IMHO, due to the fact that there is a lot of information on honing with the norton stones. They lap easily and are not as expensive as shapton glass stones allowing you to figure out if honing is for you. It is likely that, if you have to, you will be able to resell them pretty quickly.

Good luck!

-Rob

The Norton 4k/8k is a great combo. On Sharpening Supplies - Sharpen Your Knives and Tools With The Right Supplies they have the Norton water stone kit, which includes a 220/1000k, a 4k/8k and the Norton Lapping stone for $119.00. It even comes with a DVD. That's a pretty good deal. With that and maybe a strop with some cro2 or Diamond paste .50, you'd be good to go. The Shaptons are great, The 16k is nice for finishing/polishing, but pricey. The lapping stone for the Shapton's, which they highly recommend is around $450.00

I started out with that Norton kit and it is a good value for the money. You have everything you need to work with save a finishing stone and if you add the Chinese 12k into the mix it is only another twenty or thirty bucks depending on which size you get.

Shapton makes two different diamond lapping plates. The GDLP (glass diamond lapping plate) is $289.00 and the DRLP (diamond reference lapping plate) is up in the $450.00 range. The latter is diamond bonded to steel and is meant for plane irons rather then razors.

If a guy is only going to use the hones to sharpen and maintain his own small rotation of razors the Norton set is perfectly adequate and should last a lifetime. OTOH, if you get into honing as a passion and want to try all kinds of different hones and acquire many old razors for practice that is another thing altogether.