I have honed thousands and thousands of the newer TI's and they all have turned out to be very nice shavers. That said, most have been a complete pain in the you know what to hone. If you look at many of the new ones you will see heels that are broken and then repaired and sold that way, uneven flattening of the spine that most time does not match on both sides, wider bevels on the front side indicating burr removal probably on the final grinding and in many cases a double bevel already existing. The biggest problem in honing these razors is in getting the bevel set properly and although many people may think they have the bevel set, I am betting not. Whether you use tape or not, and keep in mind that the tape will only help you save further wear on the spine, these razors simply take considerable time to get the bevel right. It can be hard to get the double bevel out, you may be creating a double bevel after you think you have one out, but you really need to make sure your test for the bevel is fool proof or you make sure under the microscope that your scratch marks extend all the way down the bevel to the edge uniformly. I have spent hours on some of these just setting the bevel and walked away from a few until the next day. But, in every case, once the bevel was set properly, I could proceed and I am using mostly Naniwa's presently, going to the 5K, 8K, 12K and then Suehiro 20K ending up with a fine shaver.

As an alternative and again taping is your decision, the Rolling X can be used from bevel setting to finish and you should end up with a nice shaver.

I am seeing some improvement from TI in the past year and hopefully it will continue, but based on their final grinding, they will remain a little harder to hone in my opinion.

Have fun.