Quote Originally Posted by thorxes View Post
Follow up: I went out and bought quite a few old straight razors to practice my honing skills. I found that most of them had a "bow" to them (I forget what the proper term is). But essentially if you mark the edge of the razor with a sharpie and run it over the honing stone - only the middle portion of the blade will hit the stone. You would then have to gently rock the blade as you move over the honing stone.

Did you encounter this a lot? How did you overcome it? Or was it just a nuance that required additional skill?

I ended up being able to develop a good edge on certain portions of a blade, but couldn't quite get a consistent edge over the entire length of the blade.
I think what you are referring to is a blade that has a "smile", curving downward from both the toe and heel.
Here is an example of a nice smile:

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These can't be sharpened like a blade with a straight edge, you have to angle the razor on the hone to get all parts of the edge to properly make contact. To save a lot of explanation, here is a video by gssixgun showing his technique. I have used the same with great success. I tried to hone my first smiling edge like a straight edge with the same result that you got.

gssixgun Honing a Smiling Wedge part 1.wmv - YouTube