I give up. I give up i give up igiveupigiveup.

4 hours. FOUR HOURS of honing on this thing. I honed in a bit of a smile after reading Smythe's post here--this razor had a frown when I got it, and it seemed to have all the problems he described. Plus, it just made sense for a swaybacked razor to have a matching smile.

So I was making progress. I taped the spine because if I hadn't, there would be no spine left, and I got to where I was mostly hitting on points with my strokes using the marker test. Iwas using Lynn's 45 degree strokes, and after a while I was noticing some real progress. I got to where the heel was a really nice feeling bevel--popping hairs and sticky. But the toe WOULD NOT GET SHARP. I tried circles and back honing on just the toe, I tried extra tape on the toe. I tried toe-leading 45 degree strokes, and NOTHING HAPPENED. No change whatsoever in the feel of that toe. I have half a bevel, and a rapidly shrinking razor.

Enough.