Thread: Jnat buyers remorse: please help me ;'(

I bought a level 5+ Ozuku kiita stone the other day. it arrived yesterday and I lapped it and started honing on it.
I had high expectations, I told the vendor that I want to pass HHT-4 consistently and play around to get HHT-5. (Please don't argue that HHT is not a good measure of sharpness, at least it is in the ballpark and I have had consistent results with it too).

I was told that this particular stone is very hard and that is no problem.
I also bough Botan , Tenjo and Mejiro nagura to use on my stone.

after honing on it today I realized HHT-3 is not possible after stropping. My test shave was poor. The blade could shave me but with a considerable amount of pulling on my whiskers I shaved one cheek and had to pull out another razor to finish the job.

I can get a good shaving edge from Norton 1k, then 4k, then 8k and steerhide strop. (I don't finish on 8k but someone told me if you can get the blade shave ready on 8k you are ready for natural finishers, hence I tried it)

Typically I finish the blade after 8k on 0.5 micron crox then 0.25 diamond paste and then leather, I get a great shave.

It took me a long time to learn the basics of honing on Norton 4/8k so before jumping with both feet I had read information on how to use jnats on coticule.be japanesenaturalstones.com and a couple videos on youtube. also a little bit of word of mouth.

I bought my stone from a very reputable seller, and I am sure that my technique and knowledge is the problem. what should I do? how should I hone?
I highly appreciate your help.