Norton Ascent Ultra-Fine sharpening stone mini-review
Sept 28, 2020 22:05:22 GMT
Post by Lord Cobol on Sept 28, 2020 22:05:22 GMT
(from sharpeningsupplies dot com, purchased at normal price).
TL;DR - it is flat (!), works well and is perhaps *slightly* finer than my Spyderco Ultra-Fine.
Continuing on my silly 2013 quest to rate and compare various sharpening stones and grits... And it really is silly because I have mostly lost interest in cutting and don't need to sharpen much except kitchen knives. For the amount of money I have spent on sharpening gizmos, it would have been cheaper to just buy a new knife every time one got dull. I'm doing this out of curiosity and cussedness, not logic. Humor me. (And there's this belt sander I have on order).
Said quest began here: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/37732/sharpening-grit-comparisons-pics-long
As before, I tested putting convex (appleseed) edges on used box-cutter blades from work -- treating them like tiny swords. I'd work thru a sequence of stones and after each step I took USB microscope pics and tested paper-slicing. If copier/printer paper sliced well I sometimes also tested on arm hair and/or thinner paper. Pics this time did not capture the differences very well and were generally not satisfactory, so I'm not posting them and I based my rating on paper-slicing performance. Sigh, I had gotten a somewhat better scope but didn't have decent lighting and I tried to use its mediocre stand because I got sick and tired of hand-holding back in 2013. The new scope was more expensive but still affordable consumer grade -- anyone with a laboratory grade scope and lighting setup could make me look like the amateur I am :)
I tested 23 different box cutter blades (and one cheap kitchen knife) in various sequences like:
- Start with Spyderco medium and work up thru Spyderco Fine and the new Norton UF.
- Start with Norton Ultra-fine and see how long it took to bring a dull blade up to paper-slicing.
- Alternate a few times between the Norton UF and one of the Spydercos and see which switch made what kind of difference.
Most of these I followed by checking the effect of stropping with my old jeans-on-a-stick strop.
Results:
- The Norton UF slices copier paper much better than the Spyderco Fine and perhaps slightly better than the Spyderco Ultra-Fine.
- Stropping after the Norton UF didn't help slicing copier paper much, but helped a lot with thinner paper.
- Both Ultra-Fines (Norton & Spyderco) could take hair off my arm.
- Going from Spyderco Medium directly to Norton Ultra-Fine worked ok without an intermediate step.
- 40 strokes (20 per side) with the Norton Ultra-Fine would bring even a dull box-cutter blade up to slicing copier paper. For that specific test I didn't need to start with a medium stone.
- Starting with the Norton UF on dull blades worked much faster than I expected. Perhaps a really *HARD* but smooth fine-grit stone will remove metal faster than a softer equally-fine-grit stone without compromising much on smoothness, combining the benefits you'd expect from normal medium & fine stones(??)
- For light/moderate touch-up the Ascent Ultra-Fine + strop might be all I need? YMMV.
Overall the Norton Ascent UF seems like a winner and a superior replacement for the Spyderco UF, despite a higher price. For my specific tests it could also replace the Spyderco Fine & Medium, but I wouldn't want to generalize from that to other uses. The biggest advantage is that it is flat. It has sizes from 1x4 inch up to 8x3 -- 8x3 is what I got and the extra width makes it easier to work with than my 8x2 Spydercos, at least on box cutter blades that are straight and about 2.5 inches long. YMMV. Sadly, the Ascent didn't come with a case but SharpeningSupplies dot com lists Norton replacement cases in 8x2 & 8x3 sizes.
A Norton grit chart that came with the UF (in May 2020) also mentions a "Fine" but 4 months later I still don't see it for sale anywhere. There's no mention of any "medium" or "coarse", but if I weren't up to my ears in other stones that I'll probably never use I might snag a Medium if it shows up.
TL;DR - it is flat (!), works well and is perhaps *slightly* finer than my Spyderco Ultra-Fine.
Continuing on my silly 2013 quest to rate and compare various sharpening stones and grits... And it really is silly because I have mostly lost interest in cutting and don't need to sharpen much except kitchen knives. For the amount of money I have spent on sharpening gizmos, it would have been cheaper to just buy a new knife every time one got dull. I'm doing this out of curiosity and cussedness, not logic. Humor me. (And there's this belt sander I have on order).
Said quest began here: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/37732/sharpening-grit-comparisons-pics-long
As before, I tested putting convex (appleseed) edges on used box-cutter blades from work -- treating them like tiny swords. I'd work thru a sequence of stones and after each step I took USB microscope pics and tested paper-slicing. If copier/printer paper sliced well I sometimes also tested on arm hair and/or thinner paper. Pics this time did not capture the differences very well and were generally not satisfactory, so I'm not posting them and I based my rating on paper-slicing performance. Sigh, I had gotten a somewhat better scope but didn't have decent lighting and I tried to use its mediocre stand because I got sick and tired of hand-holding back in 2013. The new scope was more expensive but still affordable consumer grade -- anyone with a laboratory grade scope and lighting setup could make me look like the amateur I am :)
I tested 23 different box cutter blades (and one cheap kitchen knife) in various sequences like:
- Start with Spyderco medium and work up thru Spyderco Fine and the new Norton UF.
- Start with Norton Ultra-fine and see how long it took to bring a dull blade up to paper-slicing.
- Alternate a few times between the Norton UF and one of the Spydercos and see which switch made what kind of difference.
Most of these I followed by checking the effect of stropping with my old jeans-on-a-stick strop.
Results:
- The Norton UF slices copier paper much better than the Spyderco Fine and perhaps slightly better than the Spyderco Ultra-Fine.
- Stropping after the Norton UF didn't help slicing copier paper much, but helped a lot with thinner paper.
- Both Ultra-Fines (Norton & Spyderco) could take hair off my arm.
- Going from Spyderco Medium directly to Norton Ultra-Fine worked ok without an intermediate step.
- 40 strokes (20 per side) with the Norton Ultra-Fine would bring even a dull box-cutter blade up to slicing copier paper. For that specific test I didn't need to start with a medium stone.
- Starting with the Norton UF on dull blades worked much faster than I expected. Perhaps a really *HARD* but smooth fine-grit stone will remove metal faster than a softer equally-fine-grit stone without compromising much on smoothness, combining the benefits you'd expect from normal medium & fine stones(??)
- For light/moderate touch-up the Ascent Ultra-Fine + strop might be all I need? YMMV.
Overall the Norton Ascent UF seems like a winner and a superior replacement for the Spyderco UF, despite a higher price. For my specific tests it could also replace the Spyderco Fine & Medium, but I wouldn't want to generalize from that to other uses. The biggest advantage is that it is flat. It has sizes from 1x4 inch up to 8x3 -- 8x3 is what I got and the extra width makes it easier to work with than my 8x2 Spydercos, at least on box cutter blades that are straight and about 2.5 inches long. YMMV. Sadly, the Ascent didn't come with a case but SharpeningSupplies dot com lists Norton replacement cases in 8x2 & 8x3 sizes.
A Norton grit chart that came with the UF (in May 2020) also mentions a "Fine" but 4 months later I still don't see it for sale anywhere. There's no mention of any "medium" or "coarse", but if I weren't up to my ears in other stones that I'll probably never use I might snag a Medium if it shows up.