Thread: The Famous/Infamous Norton 4/8 "JaNorton 2012"

I thought I'd share a 'known' edge (to me). The following practice imagery, through the toolmaker's microscope, are of a factory new, double bevel, 0.009", single edge, razor blade.

They were taken through an eye piece lens of 10x, and objective lenses of 5, 10, 20, and 40x, so I believe the powers are 50-400x (correct me if wrong here) but the images are cropped and reduced, so the powers are relative...FWIW it was an interesting exercise:











Here's the video:



Stay tuned for honed razor details...

Over the weekend had to tighten up both my Hamburg Ring (Joseph Rogers) and Otto Busch Weltmeister. So I repeated:
On the Norton 8000
a.)one set of 10 "X" strokes – no weight.

Stropped on Kanayama 20 linen and 60 leather.

Perfect shaves from both of these razors!!!

Glen, I am amazed. This is just so darn easy. In the past I have tried to shave with both of these razors and neither gave me the results I could get with newer blades. I thought that both of them were inferior to present day equipment. I WAS WRONG!!!

So late smart!!! The experiment continues.....

It's been interesting going here. As an experiment, I took the Wm. Allen razor over to Ogershok's place and he gave it a quick one-two on his Norton. The edge wasn't very good (forgot to account for the differences between the electrical tape he's got and the tape I've got). It *did* get the edge more even though, and I was able to take it back to almost usable (evenly, across the length), but it's just proving to be such an annoyance to get an edge on, I'm retiring it from the event and replacing out with a nice and clean Clauss 6/8.

The Elliot was intended to be the easier of the two to hone. In practice it's just been a pain. I suspect I may have minutely dished the spine while cleaning it which is making hone contact uneven. It's a very, very small effect, but enough to consistently screw up the edge at both ends of the blade. If I were a better honer, I could account for it. A wider variance would probably be easier for me to work with.

I have not yet shaved with the Clauss, but I got it evenly knocking hairs in about 20 minutes. I expect it's going to shave great.

My process was still very sloppy. I'm not counting anything, but testing regularly. I started with 20 circles with pressure, then did a few x-strokes with medium pressure, then switched to very light x-strokes. I tested regularly, gave more attention to the parts of the blade that were less sharp and moved to the 8k when I could cut hairs all along the length.

On the 8k side, I did 20 more circles with light pressure and slurry, some x-strokes with regular testing and then more X's until I'd cleared the slurry (rinsing the blade about every 3 strokes). Once the edge was reliably cutting hair, I added a second layer of tape and really carefully did X's, testing until it would pop hairs in the middle (man, my forearms are getting bare -- I can't do too much more of this until I've got to use belly and legs -- glad it's winter and I'm not going to the beach).

I then officially Stropped The Living Hell out of the blade (150 or so on linen, then 200 on leather). A tentative scrape on my totally un-prepped neck took hair off about as comfortably as a dry razor ever has.

Voidmonster JaNorton 2: The Claussening

Originally Posted by Hex

I thought I'd share



.

Thanks for sharing. This first one is very similar to what I saw. I had to get the light just right.

Tim

OOps I referenced the wrong picture. I meant the second one down!

The first image was taken 'brightfield' the second 'darkfield', the toolmaker's microscope can be adjusted for either, through the coaxial objective/illumination lens(es).
From their website:

Darkfield microscopy is a specialized illumination technique that capitalizes on oblique illumination to enhance contrast in specimens that are not imaged well under normal brightfield illumination conditions. After the zeroth order (direct) light has been blocked by an opaque stop in the substage condenser, light passing through the specimen from oblique angles at all azimuths is diffracted, refracted, and reflected into the microscope objective to form a bright image of the specimen superimposed onto a dark background.

I'm just learning to use mine again, and being an old instrument, it's darkfield needs some adjusting. Hopefully, I'll be able to tune the scope for later posts...

I've been slacking on my reporting on here but her goes the big update

Shave 3 sent it back to the stones first and ran it through a pyramid of 20/5 15/5 10/5 5/10 3/15 1/20 then it was into the strop for 100/100 linen and leather. Then a shower with a Noxema face scrub lather was Poraso ultra sensitive shave soap went with a quick 2 pass job and had a great shave steady improvements throughout the month so far. Follow up was a cold water splash a rub of the alum and a dab of neutrogena after shave balm

Shave 4 was kinda rushed through this 1 but I managed to still get a decent shave. did 50/50 on the strop and a quick hot shower then an extra thick lather from my Poraso ultra sensitive with a few drops of shave secret added. Did a quick 2 pass not half bad but a solid showing especially given the lack of attention I showed here. Follow up was a hit of cold water and alum then a splash of old spice. The saving grace of this shave I think was the muscle memory I've developed over the year I've been at this as I was so rushed I didn't pay anywhere near enough attention. Yet somehow no nicks or cuts.

Overall the whole month has been a blast and so packed with learning my honing technique has improved so much just the past 2 weeks that I wonder how I ever managed with my first few attempts at it. I have noticed like most others I get good shaves off the 8K not super amazing but solid performers I can't wait to take all I've learned up to my PHIG or barber hone and probably get the shaves to perfection.

Originally Posted by rinwaln

I have noticed like most others I get good shaves off the 8K not super amazing but solid performers I can't wait to take all I've learned up to my PHIG or barber hone and probably get the shaves to perfection.

I was just commenting to my wife earlier that I can't wait for PHIG Februrary.

The shaves I'm getting of the 8k are really good. I mean really, really good. But I'm itchin' to see how much better they get after some tender loving on that finishing stone.

(And the Clauss gave me one of the best shaves I've had today, then while polishing and cleaning the scales, I noticed there was about a quarter inch of bevel that still had micro pits in it -- and it had STILL shaved awesome!)

Just a thought, I'm a little late getting in on this experiment but I figured I would mention since you guys are trying to get as much you can out of the Norton 4/8k you guys should try honing with lather when finishing the edge. Honing with lather lubricates the abrasive and supposedly puts a finer finish on the edge. Just a thought, love the thread by the way!

Originally Posted by Blix

Will be back on track tomorrow. Birnando gave me a Filarmonica EBPD to try out at the meetup yesterday, so I have to give it a try today...

Uh I meant tomorrow, I got a nice old Thuri in the mail yesterday, and I just NEED to try anything new right away, I do not have the patience to wait a couple weeks!

I still don't have a Norton 4/8, but at the Oslo Meetup this weekend I got the opportunity to try one and inspired by JaNorton I decided to test the 8K edge.

The razor I honed was a 13/16 Gotta full hollow, since this was a eBay special I admit that I cheated and set the bevel on a Chosera 1K, but to me this was mostly about testing the 4/8K as I looking for another mid stone(s) in addition to my Naniwa SS 3/8K, and while I was at it I wanted to try shaving of the 8K.

I'm not participating in JaNorton, but I thought I'd share my experience anyway.

Did about 30 circles and a unknown number of strokes on each side, I stopped counting strokes a long time ago and go solely by the feedback from the hones, and the feedback from the Norton was IMO very good, there was no doubt to when I was finished on each grit, maybe a little more evident on the 8K side, but the 4K was also telling clearly when it was time to stop.

It was a very nice stone to use, and definitely one I will consider adding to my setup.

After honing the razor was stropped 60/60 on Neil Miller Linen/Kanayama Cordovan, and before todays shave 30/60 on the same.

The shave was, as expected after reading this thread, nice and comfortable, if I had to I could certainly managed to get by shaving of the 8K alone, unfortunatly HAD has already hit, not hard, but it's there