Greetings folks

I am getting back into my straights after a few years hiatus and decided to have a go at this honing caper.

I have sourced a Naniwa Super Stone in 1k as my starting point to learn how to set a bevel and to try and progress from there. Stone has been lapped on a glass plate and w/d sandpaper @ 600 grit (some statewide shortage of low grit W/D here for some reason.)

The sacrificial lamb in all this is a Dixie Blue Steel razor made in Georgia. I'll try and get some pics tonight but basically I chose this razor out of my collection as it looked to not have any glaring issues to test my newbie stroke too severely. There is some pitting/chipping of the edge near the heel but apart from this the razor seem to have a nice straight edge and pretty even honewear.

I watched Glen's honing on Naniwa video series - he sets the bevel on a King stone and had at it for about an hour last night. I have previously honed in a seated position but I really found standing at the stone like Glen did to be more comfortable and helped with my droopy elbow tendency a lot.

I made several sets of circles trying to chase out the edge issues near the heel. I did reduce these significantly but I reached a point where I didn't seem to be eliminating the last of the biggest imperfections. This was probably 6 sets of circles total, 3 of the sets with some added pressure from my spare hand to the problem area. Do I just need to do more sets to eliminate the pitting or could I be inducing extra damage? I just don't have any point of reference for how many sets/how long I should expect to remove pits/chips.

Knowing I will be back to the hone more than a few times as I learn and wanting to ask the above questions I decided to move on so I could practice the other strokes. I made several sets of straight and x-strokes, I found these very much easier in a standing position with the second hand helping to guide the razor. A couple of times I thought I had made a very bad stroke or something was wrong with the stone but I realised I was picking up the stabiliser on the side of the hone. Not a good feeling but now I know I need to watch that on my push stroke.

I had a good TNT along the length of the blade but could feel the difference in sensation at the heel where the issues remained. The razor wouldn't really shave arm hair at this point but could cut paper with almost zero pressure along the length. The edge looked in pretty good order at this point on inspection. I gave the razor 10 very light x-strokes after these tests and then stropped 50 linen, 30 leather. The last cm or so of the toe still wouldn't shave arm hair but the rest of the blade did. That catchy/grabby edge near the heel did it very easily - stupid serrations!

I did note that some of the edge in the middle of the blade appeared to have degraded after the stropping and hair cutting. Could the edge have been too thin from being on the hone too long chasing those heel problems? It could be a stropping error but it looks more like some very small pieces have just fallen out of the edge. I have a kept a few straights shave ready for over a year with stropping and crox on balsa so I don't think it was my fault on the strop at least. Any thoughts on this?

My 30x loupe has arrived today so perhaps I will get some better insight with magnification.

My current thinking is to dull the edge with a couple of strokes on glass and start again. Should I persevere with heel until I'm back to clean steel, redull and then try to set a bevel across the full length? Can anyone give me a guide as to how long on the 1k hone it should take to nail these edge chips on the heel and/or if there is anything I should be aware of that may be hindering me? (apart from not being very good! )

Cheers