Ok, honestly. I have an ebay special. I've posted about it when I bought it (http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=10407) -- it's Vanadium by CF Ern. I looked up Vanadium and vanadium is a steel additive to supply strength.

Anyhoo -- I polished this thing up fairly nicely with a bunch of wet/dry automotive polishing sandpaper (800 and 1K grit) and some Maas, and found myself a Norton 4k/8k, and a strop.

Initially the razor was barely sharp enough to cut butter.

I have put in at least 4 pyramid series starting at 20/20. and then at 4 more visits to the 8k side with 10 passes each time. I perform an HHT after each honing, then strop and repeat the HHT, and never does the blade pass, nor does it really cut off any arm hairs or anything. I can get it to cut a beard hair if it happens to catch the thing, and then it will pull the hair apart.

So clearly, something is wrong. Should I a) hone more, b) not use exclusively x-patterned pyramids as demonstrated on Lynn's DVD or 3) invest in a belt sander.

Thanks for any input!