cheers Rez, I have had no one else hone my razors before, so maybe that's an investment well spent simply for comparison/experience. I could send them to Oz, he's not that far from me.

I also am only a week back into SR shaving after a 6 month hiatus due to a nice beard I was sporting. Perhaps my skin is a bit "softer" and not used to the regular shave. That coupled with a different approach to the honing?

I shaved with the same razor (pre-honing) only 2 days ago and had only 1 small cut (a pimpley thing) but the shave was no where near as close.