Well, I thought I would just write down some initial lessons I've learned since trying my hand at honing and restoration.

- when hand sanding, take care and not concentrate pressure on one spot of the blade. (the W & B I bought from an antique had some heavy pitting in one particular spot, so I think I concentrated the sanding in that spot. The result was a dip in the spine. This in turn has caused some difficulty in honing because that one dip in the spot does not allow the edge to get honed evenly.)

- I don't need to start so far back on the blade when honing. (I guess I thought I would not get the heel part of the edge if I started at the heel, so I was starting pretty much on the tang. This caused unnecessary hone marks on the tang. I can start at the heel, with the heel leading a little and it seems to get the heel just fine.)

- no pressure needed. (I'm using a dmt 1200 to set the bevel and this thing cuts fast. Despite the problems listed, the bevel is being set pretty fast. I initially thought it would take a long time, but nope. If it wasn't for the dip in the spine the bevel would have been set with a relatively small number of laps on the hone. I'm not counting the amount of laps, I just figured on the ol' lap and test method.)

So, a question...when I'm hand sanding should I hold the sanding paper on the edge side or stay on the spine side like I did before?

Should I have taped the spine? I'm just wondering if that would help the situation or if would just be the same situation just at a different angle.

Thanks for any and all responses/suggestions.