Originally Posted by
ScottGoodman
My first advice is find someone within driving distance to show you the ropes on honing. You will learn more in an hour face to face than you will in a month online.
The "skin" must be lapped away from Naniwa and Norton stones.
Circles are for removing bevel material to get the cutting edge to the stone. Once there, you then have to quit circles and go to back and forth strokes. My preference is the x stroke. No pressure after you have bevel set, just he controlled weight of the blade on the stone. Get yourself some sort of magnification of at least 20x so you can see what is going on at the edge. Many use a jewelers eye loop. You have good stones, you just have to learn the skills to see what those stones can do.
Put your location in your member ID so we can assist you in finding a honing mentor.