Originally Posted by
Utopian
OK, thanks. It looks like you are starting to hit the stabilizer on the back side and have the beginning of a hook. I think Onimaru addressed this several pages back.
I think torquing is one of the hardest things for beginning honers to grasp. You need to do it, but it should not be excessive. You just keep your focus on the pressure being on the edge, even with the lightest stroke, and the spine should just go along for a relatively weightless ride. The spine serves only as an angle guide, with the bevel angle being determined by the angle established by the spine and the edge, but steel only needs to be removed from the bevels to create the edge. That's why I'm saying that you focus your pressure at the edge, where steel needs to be removed, rather than on the spine that is only a guide.
You to not want to exert a lot of rotational pressure (torquing) when you do this. On anything but a wedge, if you do so you run the risk of bending the blade which will have the effect of honing the belly side of the bevel and never making contact with the edge side of the bevel because the edge will be lifted off of the hone.
I hope that is clear.
I would drop down to the 4k or whatever you use before the 8k. Do whatever number of strokes needed to create flat pristinely uniform bevels again. Use the focussed torquing and, as always, fresh tape. I don't think you should not need more than 10 to 20 strokes. After that, change the tape and with light strokes and that same focussed torquing, do no more than 20 8k strokes. Repeat the same with the 12k with maybe only 10 strokes