Do yourself a HUGE favor...

If you plan to hone a lot of eBay razors, mosey on over to the Lee Valley Tools website and order yourself a 220-1000 grit combo waterstone for about $25 plus shipping.

I just got mine today, and holy cow it makes a difference. I spent about two hours on Sunday trying to put a good bevel on a couple of near-wedges that I've been working on. I'd put a bevel on them with sandpaper, but it was rounded, so when I went to the Norton the hone wasn't hitting the edge.

It took about an hour for me to put a nice bevel on three razors, two of which were the wedge wannabes.

Tomorrow I'm going to work out a 1/2 bevel-deep nick on a Griffon that I plan to post here, and it probably will take 15 minutes on the 220 instead of hours...

This stone is great, and it's so affordable that I can save wear and tear on my Norton.

Just a tip,
Josh

sandpaper works well too.

1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper always works for me. My Norton 1000 is now used to refresh/clean my other Nortons. I never have found it necessary to use 220 grit anything.

Maybe I haven't been using my sandpaper correctly, but it put a nice rounded bevel on my two wedges. Then my Norton wasn't able to hone the actual edge until I'd worked off the rounded portion of the bevel. It was taking forever.

I just wanted to mention this stone because I was surprised that it was pretty affordable and works well. It saved me a lot of time.

Josh
Josh

I use both the 220 and 1000 for razors with large nicks and for those nasty wedges with the shoulders all ground up. The 4K would take weeks.

Have fun.

Lynn

I have the Norton 220/1000 and think its a great stone.

I'm certainly no expert, but I've been playing with all of the stones I have (Norton 220/1000, 4000/8000, Japanese 1000/4000 waterstone, various barber's hones) to see how they each perform.

One of the e-bay razors I bought to practice on had a lot of metal that needed to be removed as the steel on the edge was what I'd call punky if it were wood (meaning that as I honed, the spots on the blade would turn into nicks as the edge was being ground - if there's a better term for this, let me know). There's no way I would ever bother to hone this much material on a 1000 (maybe I'm lazy/impatient, if that's the case, so be it!). The 220 did an amazing job grinding away the problematic material - it would have taken hours on a 1000.

I think its fair to say that the 220 should only be used for major metal removal and with the knowlege that you will need to spend a lot of time on the 1000 and 4000 to bring the edge to shaving sharpness.

Anyhow, my $0.02.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by suzuki

I have the Norton 220/1000 and think its a great stone.

The 220 did an amazing job grinding away the problematic material - it would have taken hours on a 1000.

I think its fair to say that the 220 should only be used for major metal removal and with the knowlege that you will need to spend a lot of time on the 1000 and 4000 to bring the edge to shaving sharpness.

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Exactly. I have a major nick on an antique store razor that I plan to take out tonight. Tape the spine, give it 50 laps on the 220, and no more nick. :D

I had a course Arkansas stone that I'd been using, but the waterstone is a lot easier to flatten. I think I wore out three sheets of 220 grit sandpaper on that stupid oilstone, and it still wasn't flat. The waterstone also cuts much more quickly.

Josh