? about my norton stone, upb8 coarse/fine

G

GreenLantern

Joined
Oct 4, 2006
Messages
5
Hello All,

This is my first post here so I'd like to say hello. I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to knives, so if these questions are rather dumb, then my apologies.

I picked up a Norton Sharpening Stone UPB8 that has coarse on one side and fine on the other and now I have a few questions. Their website, IMO, didn't offer a whole lot of information. So here goes:

1) There is a coarse side and a fine side. Wouldn't logic dictate that to get a truely sharp edge, that I'd want to go from coarse, to medium, and then to fine?

2) How much downward pressure should I put on the blade as I am drawing it across the stone?

3) I also have a bottle of honing oil. How much should I put on the stone? Should it pool on top? Because right now if I put oil on the surface it just soaks right into the stone.

Thanks in advance.

GreenLantern
 
Ok, my first post and already I made a mistake ..... looks like I should have posted this in the ......The Toolshed: Knife Care, Maintenance, Tinkering & Embellishment forum. :foot:
 
Your thread will probably get moved.

It sounds like they didn't presoak this hone. If that is true you have the option of using water on it instead of oil. Water won't work better, but it is a lot less messy. If you feel like doing that then clean the hone with hot water and sink scouring powder. Then run it through your dishwasher. You need to get all oil out of it to use water. With water you can just keep a glass of water or a wet washcloth handy to keep your hone clean and wet. Actually if you get all the oil out of the hone you can use the hone dry and just scrub it with sink cleanser now and then to keep the surface fresh.

If you want to go the oil route you do want to try and keep the surface visibly wet with oil. You might want to make a little tray out of aluminum foil, put 2 or 3 tablespoons of oil in it, and soak your hone surfaces for one day each. Subsequently just add oil on top of the hone as you work. Periodically you may want to scrub your hone with a stiff brush and oil or paint thinner to freshen it. You will want to clean the surface of your hone with a rag after use to clean out debris. I like an old chunk of terrycloth towelling.
 
Sorry, I forgot your other questions. Coarse then fine grit is ok. You might be able to do a slightly faster job with three grits, but it wouldn't do a better job. If you have a dull blade start with the coarse grit and sharpen until you have an edge that cuts newspaper well. At that point you want to remove the scratches in your bevel left by the coarse grit by using your fine grit hone. If you had a medium grit hone you reduce those scratches a little quicker than doing it all with your fine grit, but you would still need to move on to the fine grit to finish. In the end the fineness of your edge will be set by your fine grit hone. By the way, your hone appears to be an aluminum oxide type so it should give you a pretty fine edge. You have chosen well.

If you have a lot of material to remove (the edge is really dull or really thick and dull) use fairly high pressure while using your coarse grit, but not so hard that you can't control what you are doing. If you get scratches all over the side of your blade you don't have enough control. When you switch to the fine grit start out using sort of a medium pressure and finish up with very light pressure.

You will find that honing leaves a residue of thin foil-like material along your edge (called a burr) that needs to be gotten rid of. After you fiinish using your coarse hone (lets assume that you had your blade tipped up about 20 degrees from level) then you want to knock the burr off with a little honing at 40 degrees. Switch to the fine hone, tilt the spine of the blade up about twice as high off the hone as before and extremely gently hone with the edge traveling forward (like you were trying to shave the hone). Do this very lightly alternating sides left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right (only about as many times as I just listed). Then move back to honing at your normal angle (say 20 degrees) with your fine hone. When you do your fine honing you should probably mostly hone with this edge-forwards stroke and alternate left-right side. It will create less of a burr. When you are just about done removing the scratches left by your coarse hone repeat the deburring step. Then finish honing with very light pressure. When you are done try lightly stropping your edge on an old belt for just 2 or 3 swipes per side again alternating left and right side).
 
Welcome to Bladeforums!

moving-van.jpg
 
Wow! I can't thank you enough for the thorough reply. I'll put these tips to work and see how it goes. I'm pretty sure I will clean stone as you suggested and go forward using water. Thanks.

GreenLantern
 
Happy to help, mate.

"In brightest day, through darkest night..
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship Evil's might,
beware my power...
Green Lantern's Light."
 
i use WD40 on my norton and imho it works better than any other lubes i have tried.

i rarely use the coarse side of my hone i rarely let anything get that dull except kitchen knives, do use it on them some.

nortons are good stones esp. for the $$ imho.
 
Ok, I'm going to post an even dumber follow up question. I got the stone out to sharpen a knife I just got, but I've forgotten which side is coarse and which is fine since it's been over a year since I used it. Running my hand across each side feels about the same. There is a gray side and a brown side. So which is coarse and which is fine? My guess is that the brown side is fine.

Maybe a guy who can't even figure this out shouldnt be handling anything more than a butter knife, eh? :foot:
 
Grayish Black is coarse.
Orange -brown is fine

I use these Norton India stones dry, no oil, no water, just dry.
I clean with Bon-Ami, with a old toothbrush when it is time to clean.

Just use lighter pressure and these stones will give a great edge for what most people use a knife for.

Case Hard Fine Arkansas stone, the 2 7/8" x 1" ,is the only other stone I use, if I have a need to.

I strop using no paste, and use cardboard, old leather belt, or denim, whether this be the jeans I am wearing, or a pc of loose denim.
 
Dry, really? Hmmm, I always thought you needed some type of fluid on all stones. I'll have to give it a try. Big thanks!
 
Janitech ( I know I spelled that incorrectly) showed under magnification the difference in dry, vs lubed.

Joe Talmadge has some information on this too.

We silly Americans use oil, everywhere else in the world , folks uses water...if they use anything at all.
 
I use waterstones and not oilstones, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But from the Razor Edge Book of Sharpening book by John Juranitch (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/096660590X), he said that he gets better results from NOT using oils with oilstones. He said it's controversial to what everyone else is doing, but he gets the best results from that. I don't know how many people who practice that though.
 
Once you use oil on your stone you either need to keep using oil or you have to purge the oil out of the stone before you use it. Oil makes the surface of the stone break down to expose fresh grit surface. If you have fluid oil on the surface it also loosens up the grit residue so that it does not clog up the surface of the stone. If the surface of a hone has been soaked with oil and you do not have liquid oil on the surface the grit comes loose and gets packed into the surface. The hone breaks down fast, but it does not cut fast.

If you want to switch from oil to water or to honing dry, first wash your hone several times in a hot dishwasher.
 
Well, the unfortunate truth is that the fine side is not very fine, which is in part the reason why you have trouble telling the difference between the fine and the coarse side. Unless you are very skilled/practiced, you will probably need a strop or a real fine stone to get a decent edge on your knife with it.

Personally I like Phil Wilsons suggestion to use Windex or similar instead of oil on it. It worked well for me.
 
Looking at the Norton catalog indicates that your hone is probably presoaked with oil at the factory. You are going to have to keep using oil on it. I would use a light oil such as mineral oil.

You should get a very good cutting edge with the fine side. You may want to strop on something if you are looking for a shaving edge. I would use leather that has been coated with green or white buffing compound.
 
Norton and other oil impregnated stones are easily cleaned by burning them.
Heck I was born in the mid 50's and Mentors were doing this before I was born.

Put the stone where a fire is to be made outdoors, light fire, and let fire die out.
This allows stone to heat up and cool down gradually.

The stone is clean as a whistle! All residue is gone.
One can see the oil burning out while in the fire.

Now, this stone is used dry, and it sharpens so much better than many can even imagine.
It does not clog, just brush off on pants leg, and it is like brushing off a old chalk board eraser, debris comes out.

If oil ever gets onto the stone, it will be evident, as the stone behaves different,and will require burning again.

Norton India, IB6, IB8 and others with this coarse/fine combo, we have done this too many times over all these years, even with a brand new stone to remove factory impregnated oil.

Do so at your own risk and all that, still...

One does not need all this newfangled gobbly gook for sharpening, and these knife steels as some "say" one does.
 
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