I've been honing now every day for 7 months - I've got my Shaptons down to a science. I have had a couple razors that I haven't been able to get to my ultimate level of perfection.

There is little mention here of torquing the blade down as you do your strokes and I tried this today with amazing results. I was able to get two of my "difficult" razors to tree top my arm hair which is my ultimate test. I have very fine arm hair and if I can tree top it, the razor is as sharp as it will ever get.

Just wanted to pass along the fact that torquing the razor down on its edge a bit is a great technique worth stressing to folks just starting out. Obviously you don't want to roll the blade onto its edge but a slight rotational force forward on the edge gives much more feedback and also seems to reduce the number of strokes needed on each hone in the progression.

Happy honing - if you haven't tried it yet give it a whirl...

-john