I got a barbers hone a few weeks ago and noticed that it left a pretty harsh edge on my straight, even with using lather and no pressure. So I decided to make a bench hone (or at least that's what I'm going to call it) to put some paste on. I got some 3" wide balsa cut it to 8" lengths and glue 4 of them together so now I got a 1" thick hone that sits very nicely on the table with some little sticky rubber feet that I put on the bottom. So what next, should I lap the hone? I was thinking about doing on either 600 on 1000 wet dry so I don't leave too rough a surface. How to I get the paste on? I settled on "mibro compound 6" I read a post on the forum about using it plus its dirt cheap and I'm on a budget. As far as I can tell (and I work in the metal trades) it is chrome ox, or at least chrome ox based. Alas what ever they used to turn it into a stick has left it too hard to transfer onto my hone so I'll have to crush it back into a powder, so should I use water or some sort of oil (maybe olive oil) to get it on the hone? Finally how much should I apply? am I shooting to cover the entire surface, or will a few X's do?

cheers
Omid