Alright, well first things first. I just picked up a new Norton 4/8k and niniwa 12k to learn how to hone. Razor in question is a $30 ebay razor in good condition, no cracks/pitting/rust anywhere near the edge, only a very little pitting up near the spine on one side.

Now I was able to get the 4k side of the norton flat and got all of that roughness smoothed out of the stone with very little problems. Didn't really take all that much. Now I was working on the 8k side for a great deal of time and just didn't seem like I was getting anywhere, the DMT plate did appear to be cutting properly because whenever I would pull the stone up to check on it, I could see the yellow slurry on the dmt clearly. This Norton stone just seemed to have the center of the stone be very high, could not get the corners to smooth out at all. Now after 25+ mins I decided to take a break and go work on the niniwa 12k stone. It started to do the same thing the 8k norton was. However I didn't put quite as much time into this stone, a full hour had passed since I started lapping these stones and holding the dmt plate under running water was starting to fatigue my arms, these things aren't light. So I have stopped for the night as my hands are just a bit to shaky to be trusted now.

My question is do new stones like the norton 8k and niniwa 12k take a substantial amount of time to get them flat initially? I was using very little pressure at all during this process, was using just enough to make sure the stones stayed in contact. Is more pressure normally needed? Or is this normal behavior.