First full hone job

Hi,
Attempted my first full honing job on Smokelaw's donated DA razor. Used full slurry with coticule, full slurry with BBW, and coticule with water per Bart's Wiki article. Also first time holding the hone on 1 hand (they are 6x2).

Being new to this, I had no idea really what to expect. Some observations:

-magic marker on the bevel is a great check. I quickly discovered I was lifting the toe

-holding the hone seems easier than putting it on the table. I think my dining room table was too high for the job

-not sure what the right slurry consistency is, but as I moved from clearly too thick (pasty), to too thin, there seemed to be a sweet spot where I could *hear* the hone cutting (making a low to high pitch during the x-stroke). Could be my imagination, but it also seemed like at that time I could smell the hone...

-I didn't count strokes, but after a while I could feel a suction effect on the blade-- I figured that was a good time to wrap up the current step (QUESTION- is that the time to stop, or is that the time when the hone is really working, so keep on truckin'??)

-Never got to HHT level, but got it to shave my arm hair ok.

-Final result- was able to get a full face shave, but nowhere near my Lynn-honed razor (which is 3 weeks old). Did WTG and XTG, but I think too dull to do ATG.

-Took me about 2 hours, mostly messing around with the slurry consistancy.

-So, long way to go, but happy I was able to improve the blade from where I started vs. dulling it.

Chief

That sounds almost exactly the same as my recent honing experience with a new razor that was not shave-ready, except I only have a yellow and slurry stone. Close but not quite there. At least we both have hope that with a bit more attention you'll get there soon.

Yeah.. it's always good to have little victories... just get sharper bit by bit... The biggest help for me was just watching the vids Lynn has on youtube and spending the extra time on the bevel setting... after that you can always go back to a few more (ok sometimes a lot more) laps on the yellow and dial in the "shave ready."

The first step seems to be the scariest, after that it's not so bad:gl: