I've been following the extremely useful advice on the forum and have been practicing exactly as i've seen and read. I'm trying to learn the X patern and on every stone I have.
I suddenly noticed that while practicing on the norton 4/8k, that an X patern isn't as efficient in creating an even bevel as say using the entire width.
An X pattern is efficient on a 2 inch because even though the toe isn't contacting the hone in the first part of the stroke, it will come down at the end of the stroke . But on the 3" the Toe contact is constant meaning the toe gets honed twice as much as the heel because the heel loses contact.

While I'm not going to get into the philosophy of efficiency and effectiveness, I was wondering what eveyone thought about this. Wouldn't an even bevel be achieved more efficiently if the blade used the entire surface of the Norton?