Hi Fella's,
I'm glad I found SRP! I thought I'd be lost in a world losing touch with classic things like straight razor shaving and be without anyone to talk to!

So I bought a basic kit a few years back. It's all made in china and my razor is stainless. When I first got it, it wasn't sharp enough for a shave so I took it to a local fellow in Montreal (where I lived at the time) and he had enough knowledge to get a decent edge on it. He still didn't have the 8000 and up for a fine finish so it was never awesome. After a few months shaving I'd take it back to him. I left that city years ago now and my straight razor has been left unused. I finally got some cash together and got a Norton 4000/8000 combo waterstone and after watching a bunch of videos (some from Lynn as well as others) I sat down and passed probably 200 or so strokes on the hone.

Obviously I wasn't amazing starting out, but I got better and better and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Problem is, that I still can't shave my arm, let alone cut a hanging strand of hair. I tried on the 8000 side after a good stretch of strokes on the 4000 side and while I've definitely brought the edge up a notch in it's fineness, I still can't shave my arm.

I remember my dad and I trying to get the edge to a shaveable state with a standard knife sharpening kit a few years back and I'm hoping I didn't take the bevel off a ways, and now I'm stuck trying to get it back to normal. The blade does seem to make contact on the stone, lying flat and doesn't have any super obvious irregularities of knicks etc..

I'm just not sure if I need to go down to a 1000 to start it all again, or if there's something I'm doing wrong with the 4000/8000. Would it be worth while posting a few pics of the razor and/or a video of my honing efforts?

Any tips or suggestions would be awesome. Thanks!