Originally Posted by
AusTexShaver
While I certainly agree with you about the difficulty of knowing what's happening at the finer grits, it's been my experience that two of the hardest things to learn by someone who's just starting out are when it's necessary to use a 1k and when to stop using it and move on to the higher grits.
I would also dispute the "less time to learn bad habits" as it's not only common but necessary to use a little pressure (OK OK sometimes more than a little :w) on the 1k if you're dealing with very dull blade or one such as a wedge that needs LOTS of metal removed before you transition from the removing metal phase to the actual bevel setting phase. In addition there are advanced strokes to learn (like doing circles) to get the bevel as perfect as it can be for the entire length of the blade to make your life easier on the higher grits.
If you want to see the ultimate in frustration give a new guy (who is just to the point of having a little success with getting a perfectly straight blade sharp with the Norton) a totally dull badly warped blade and tell him to have at it. But you don't really have to do that as you can read about that experience on this forum at quite frequent intervals.