I do not mean to be contrarian, but I would play around with light honing before you send it in.
I say this with some reservation, because ultimately you will be responsible for what happens to your DOVO.

Everyone comes from different perspective, but I for one value the ability to hone over a price of a razor.
You can always (and probably should) send it in to be professionally honed after you are done with some level of experimenting.
This way you can gain some valuable experience and also have a sharp razor at the end of the day.
If you send it in right away, you might be much more hesitant to do any kind of serious honing afterwards for fear of ruining it.

All of this, of course, is null if you get a practice razor offered by stingray.