+1 on the previous comments.

Honing can take a serious pile of hones and practice.
A number of folk hone razors for ballpark $20 each and have a couple
thousand $$ invested in their kit of hones and strops.
More importantly they also have experience having honed thousands of razors.

Knowing this can let you focus on stropping and
shaving which alone takes practice.

If you have been lucky to find a DE razor and blade combination
that serves you very well you may find that it takes a gosh
long time to match that with an open blade razor no matter
who hones it. I can tell you that it is possible but could take a
while....

Note that it is true that a Norton 4k/8K is all that most need but
we do tend to want to embark on the ultimate quest for more...
thus honing can get expensive....