You beeeeauty!

After a couple of weeks of go-slow honing, using the palm pad sharpness test and the shave test, I finally lucked out today and achieved a sharpness to the blade which gave me a shave from my Dovo equal to the shave from my TI that Lynn honed for me (note: the shave was equal, I'm not claiming the edge was!).

OK, so there's probably a fair amount of luck going on there since I haven't honed thousands of razors. But I'm hoping it means I'm understanding it a bit. Of course, I won't be going to the hone for a few weeks now so I'll probably lose the touch.

On the final home stretch (today's honing) I did the following: 3/3, 1/3, 1/3, 1/5, 1/8 on the Norton 4k/8k, then 15 on the coticule.

Got the old hot knife through butter shave, absolutely zero razor burn (first time!), no nicks, BBS shave.

Pleased as punch so felt like sharing. Those who advise getting a blade honed from a honemeister as a gold standard were spot on. Thanks all.

One question: I have not been using X pattern on the Norton, but obviously have had to on my coticule. I worried that this would not give good results, but clearly not in this case. Should I reconsider this in future?

Glad to hear!

I also have to X on the Coticule but not necessarily on the Norton - results should be great, unless your X isn't up to par... Don't worry

Cheers
Ivo

All roads lead to Rome. As long as you achieve your result the method is unimportant. personally I rarely do the X pattern and it works for me so I wouldn't worry about using the X on this stone or that. Just experiment to find the best way for you.