Xman had brought out some interesting points regarding stone size affecting honing performance. Using a small hone, such as a 4 x 2, the X Pattern doesn't really have enough room to be effective. Depending on blade size, you have somewhere around 2 inches of stone length to work with without scratching the blade with either end of the stone at the beginning or end of the stroke. Is it possible that people just used a circular pattern on these small hones, and is it possible to get satisfactory results using this or some other pattern? What is everyone's experience with using small hones, and how did you get them to work well?
With hones it seems, size really does matter!