Thread: First Honing Success

Just received my Norton 4K/8K last week, and on the first attempt actually made my razor more dull! Upon further research, my failure was that 1) my stone had not been flattened and the edges rounded and 2) I failed to set an appropriate bevel.

I spoke to a wood carver who had a very fine grit Arkansas Oil stone and borrowed it to use to set the bevel.

Upon completion of these two tasks, I made a second attempt which was a success! The shave test provided the smoothest shave I have had in my first month and a half of SR shaving!

Good going! It just gets better.

Awesome! I use the Norton as well and was eeally surpised at how long it takes with lapping them down to flat. I used a DMT 220 alternately under running water and it took about 15-20 minutes per side using figure 8s and decent pressure. When you lao your Norton remember to do the edges as well. I can't remember which video on the site it was but it was a video of a Meeting where they were doing a lapping demo and they mentioned lapping down the edges to further protect the razor during honing.

When you lao your Norton remember to do the edges as well.

Yes, I did do the edges. It really helps!

Great to hear..Nice accomplishment considering the slight speed bump along the way.

Man... I really want to learn to hone and prepare a stone like you did and stuff. I can't do it myself though... I need to see someone do it in front of me. Hoping for a Virginia meet up in the near future.

I found the SRP honing videos and lapping videos to be very helpful.

I'm new to SR honing too. I got my Norton 4K/8K and DMT 325 about 2 weeks ago. I already had 220/1000 and 1K/6K Japanese whetstones that I use to sharpen my kitchen knives, but honing a SR is a different experience. I used the DMT to lap all of the stones under running water. Man, I never realized how uneven my stones were--even the new Norton one.

I'm still practicing honing on a "training" SR. The only thing I missed was lapping the stone edges--I better go do that.