I'm hoping to start a thread about people's experiences with the Tam O'Shanter. I know a few very highly respected honers here (Randy Tuttle, Michael Parker, Joe Chandler) sing its praises, but there's no thread that really explores these hones the way there has been for coticules.
In my experience the Tam is not a daily workhorse like the DMTs and belgians (for me) or the 4/8K (for others). It's more of a specialty hone. What I love about it is that you can hone forever on it without developing a wire edge or anything approaching a wire edge, in fact without weakening the edge at all. So you can really remove all low-grit scratches and tiny microchips before going on to finishing hones like belgians and eschers. Sometimes I'll even take a razor that shaves great but maybe not supergreat, and I'll do a hundred strokes on the Tam w/slurry, and then go back and put the final finish back on with the coticule, and it really takes the razor to the next level, the difference in smoothness is noticeable. All those teeny-tiny microchips you might see at 100x but you don't really 'feel' them, the Tam really goes after those and then you do notice the difference.
There's understandably a big emphasis in honing talk on bevel-creation and final finish, which are obviously the most important aspects of honing. But I do think good mid-range honing pays off in the final edge and in this respect the Tam's a champ.
On the other hand, I am far from being a honemeister; I'm just a guy who hones his own ebay beaters. I've honed about 30-40 razors total and may well be talking out of my #$!% (wouldn't be the first time). I'd like to hear from anyone who's used the Tam, whether you found it indispensable or a waste of time, etc. I'd especially like to hear from more experienced guys who use the DMT–Belgian blue–coticule sequence as their basic default sequence, like heavyduty and Joshearl. The three major honemeisters who use the Tam all seem to use it between the Norton 4K and the 8K, or in sequences with other artificial hones. So I'm curious if those who use mostly natural hones (and hence don't have to worry much about overhoning anyway) find the Tam superfluous. I'm ready to admit the possibility that what I'm doing with the Tam is perfectly easy to accomplish with the Belgian blue, for example.
Thanks in advance for your input, guys.