I have no idea if this is the right course of action, but I wonder if perhaps you should lap it again to try to get past this bad reactive layer? Of course that presumes that lower layers will be better rather than worse. I really have no idea if that's the case but if the current layer is causing trouble, then it's of no use to you so it might as well be removed.
Or you could just toss the hone and get another one! I have gotten several "new" barber hones off of ebay and have never seen the problem you are referring to Jim.