I just tried taking a rubbing stone and lapped the hone and the rubbing stone both with the 400 Atoma then used the rubbing stone to smooth the surface of the hone. Slapped on the 2 layers of tape that I used last and gave it about 40 laps on a very thin layer of oil. Cleaned everything up and stropped 10 laps on the nylon web and 50 on plain leather. Got a clean HHT4 or HHT5 on a hair root in and root out - no difference. Now I need to grow some beard so I can try it out.