As for thinning the blade, you might want to be careful about that. I recently showed Tim Zowada a couple of razors that I'm working on. I hadn't hardened them yet. He told me that I had already had probably ground them too thin and that they would most likely warp. He suggested just profiling the razors, hardening them, and then doing just about all of the grinding on the hardened blade. Of course, with that method you need to be very careful not to overheat the hardened blade. I recently set my grinder up with a VFD, so I can slow my grinder down to a crawl and avoid overheating. I don't know whether or not that would be an option for you...