newbie question on honing

I have ordered the Norton double stone set 220/1000 and 4000/8000 (Whew! $116.22!!! at Amazon) I see that others finish off with 12k, or 15k or even 30k stones, which are not cheap either. What are the recommendations for a final finishing stone.

I just bought a "Piece of *" for $15 on ebay to practice on and will have someone else hone my "real blade" until I become proficient in honing. I've watched enough videos that I think I can try with my "throw down". So, I'm looking for some guidance.

Thanks

the Norton 8K

That would be a great finisher

In fact until you can get a great shave off just that stone, pretty much anything else would be a waste of money...

Maybe a pasted strop or piece of balsa to test out some finishing pastes after you get the N8k popping nice...

What about the Chinese 12k at $35 for the wider of the stones? That seems to be a pretty good deal.

r0ckrat said:

What about the Chinese 12k at $35 for the wider of the stones? That seems to be a pretty good deal.

Click to expand...

If you want to spend hours honing just on that stone alone. The loss in efficacy is not worth the cost savings.