I too, am following this thread silently, because this thing kind of went out of my league.
Randy, I don't think Josh was concentrating on the spine. His razor has a double bevel. The way Josh sees the edge after the Magic Marker Test, he sees the primary bevel cleaned up. That's the bevel closest to the spine. The secondary bevel is still marked. That's the bevel closer to the outer edge. Obviously, both bevels sit right next to each other on the very edge of the blade. Anyway, when Josh talked about the bevel near the spine, that's what I made of it.
It is called "primary bevel", Josh. As you progress honing on the 1K, it will broaden, till the point where the secondary bevel will be completely gone.
My next point is a question to me also: if you hone a lot more on the double bevel side of the blade, by the time you reached a single pane on that side, I think there's a big chance that you'll end up with an uneven bevel. I mean that the sides of the bevel won't meet at the middle anymore. The side you honed the most will be larger then the side you honed less. I have no idea how big the difference will be, nor do I know how that will affect the keenness of your edge. Maybe it makes sense to keep honing both sides, to maintain a symmetrical bevel? I really don't know. Randy will have to answer that one.
I only hope I haven't add to the confusion with posting this.
Keep at it, Josh. You'll get there eventually, and will have learned a great deal when you do. I noticed on another thread that you decided to buy a second, prehoned razor. It takes a wise man to swallow his pride by doing a just thing. Cheers for you. You'll end up with two superb shavers. I'm sure of it.
Bart.