Quote Originally Posted by rickboone View Post
You're not the first to say that and I respect your opinion. That said, I do not own other hones at the moment.

My question is; WHY learn on Nortons? Or any synthetic for that matter? Just using Norton as an example because that is what you said.

Is it the fact that they produce faster results? Is that the only benefit of learning on something else? Or are there other reasons?

If just speed, what is wrong with learning slowly or going slowly? Do you find people develop bad habits during this slow process or they get frustrated and rush it or what?
My personal opinion, because you do not have to learn the character of your stone when you can't even produce an even stroke because of inexperience. When you have some practice under your belt with built muscle memory and knowing exactly what to look for in a razor in terms of edge problems uneven honewear etc, then you can go on to use fancier stones.
You are trying to do two things from scratch learn how to hone and learn how to use coticule which on itself has a few variables that you need to determine on your own to get the job done.
Your results can be off because you either do not have consistent stroke technique, too much pressure, you do not know how to use the coti in terms of proper dilution and so on, or the razor has some problem and you are not addressing it. That is a lot of variables there, and by using a well established and consistent synthetic progression all you have to worry about is stroke,pressure and the right type of stroke.
Hope this answers the question.