Ok, so I re-flattened my hones if they needed it or not.
I put a blade on the 4k for hours (literally).The blade was sharp enough to awkwardly cut arm hair. By 'awkwardly' I mean holding the edge about 0.5 cm above the skin of my arm and it would cut maybe 2 hairs out of 60-80 the edge would actually contact.
I put the blade on the 8k for a few hundread laps after the 4k. It really didnt seem to do very much. The edge would not cut any arm hair. I looked at the edge with a 10x power lens. The bevel seemed to be even and no nicks were in the edge.
This edge was not even close to being sharp enough to shave. Now I have a face full of cuts.
... wtf ...
I am not exagerating when I say I dumped at minimum about 15 hours into honing this blade. I understand that this process cannot be rushed ... so why am I putting so much time into this and not seeing results.
I have a hard time believing I haven't put enough time into honing this stupid thing.
Also, I have a hard time believing it really takes this long to get a good shaving edge.
+20 hours after the bevel is cut?
This time estimae is within reason regarding a hollow ground blade?
No way.
I am doing something wrong here.
I tried bud_gl's method stated above and the blade wasnt even close to shaving sharp after the 8k. How do I know? I shaved with it ... well, tried to.
This week I have had more cuts on my face than almost 1 year of straight shaving. grrr.