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

I almost missed this... I know it's late, but here I am; don't think poorly of me because the January shaves will amount to exactly one. I wish I had found this thread earlier.

So, here's the girls:



A "WWII Hoffritz" I got from the bay. My first pinning job, lost the gold leaf polishing it. A Genco Red Cross, also from the bay, that I only wiped down.

The stone, just in case there's someone left in the planet that hasn't seen one:


The 4K is Italian, the 8K American, at least according to the sticky on the case.

And some curious spots I had on the 4K side. It seems I put it away too wet and the rubber nibs on the case stained it. They came out rather easily during lapping:



I got to it yesterday afternoon. I decided to do assembly line work and set the bevel on both and then finish and polish them both so I wouldn't have to be turning the stone around. Here's the during thing:




I lapped the stone with a few circles in between razors. I felt very GSSixGun like lapping the stones a lot. If it's good enough for Glen, it sure is good enough for me.

I did the Hoffritz following Lynn's 20 circle method as shown in his video, and the Genco using Glen's Kamisori method the way he demonstrated on his video too.

Originally I tried to raise a slurry with the Norton lapping stone, but it felt like I was trying to hone on gravel, so I used my coticule slurry stone and it got a lot better. The Hoffritz had a small ding on the edge that took a long time to work out on the 4K; I did eight 20 circle sets before that thing went away. It was cutting arm hair after the second, but I certainly didn't want that dent about one inch from the toe. Five sets of the kamisori passes was good enough for the Genco. I checked progress with a 10x loupe and natural light. I noticed that in both blades the bevel seemed smaller on the reverse side. Given the consistency I assumed it to be my technique and paid more attention to form and eventually they became even, at least to my neophyte eyes.

This morning I shaved with the Hoffritz after stropping 100 times on linen and 100 times on leather on my Illinois strop and shaved. At risk of sounding a little bit conceited, It was an awesome shave. There was a little tugging at the heel, but overall it was very satisfying with very little sting with the alum block, and none with the witch hazel.

As you may or may not know, I shave twice a week due to this cruel roll of the genetic dice that allows me to shave only twice a week, so my next shave won't be until Wednesday at best. I will report then of the Genco shave, although I don't expect it to count towards my totals.

May all your shaves be smooth,



Marcos