Quote Originally Posted by prhomme View Post
he said never hone leading with the cutting edge of the blade. He couldn't believe I was doing an x pattern with the sharp edge in front. He hones with the cutting edge trailing. Second, he said to never place the razor flat on the stone. He hones his razor with the spine lifted up slightly, at some random angle.
We can speculate whether HE managed to get good edges that way, but I'm absolutely certain that most of US would end up with butter knives if we copied him. For that reason he was wrong to give you that advice.

The basic method advocated on SRP is ... well ... methodical. It is based on sound principles that are easy to learn. And it is proven to work.

What your barber did reminds me of what someone here posted about the "Belgium" method of using loose, pasted strops and allowing hones to develop a dished surface. Sure, it's an alternative approach, you can get a sharp edge even if the bevel is rounded, but why use a complicated, rather random technique when you can do it in a simple, obviously effective way?

Who knows, maybe rounded bevels are superior, and the "other" way could be seen as an advanced method. But until someone offers to train you up to do it properly, I think aiming for nice flat bevels is the best way to go.