Wow,

Finally happened. I sharpened all my blades to WOWZA sharp in ten minutes for each blade. I have had trouble with honing for atleast a year now. It is with great pride that I can FINALLY say "I got it". I think I was the longest losing streak here. Oh sure, some decent shaves, some good blades and honing, but never WOWZA sharp for me. Over honing, nicked blades, some stainless, some carbon....jeeeeez. Ok, so for you newbies (and it seems we have lots of new ones huh?) Here is what I did.

Used a microscope from Radioshack and decided that "I give up, I can't hone, and the microscope can only see the edge of the bevel anyway" So, I relied on what I could see.

I am using a Norton 4,000/8,000 soaked, with lather added to the hone, and a piece of balsa wood inpregnated with .5 diamond paste

First, honed on the 4,000 till I saw a straight even smooth edge in the microscope. No nicks, pitting or problems. This took4-5 new laps (I gave each razor 4-5 laps regardless) Most razors looked fine from the beginning (yea I do a lot of honing) One, certainly looked awful.

Second, 20-40 laps on the 8,000 with a little pressure. And I stress the word little, but not NO pressure. Enough to keep the blade on the hone securly. OK, to me thats a lot of laps, more than I've ever tried. Now on this part I just said "Screw it, I can't hone so I'm not going to stress about the quality of each lap, I'm just going to push the blade securely down the hone" I can't tell you if you need 20 or 40, I think both amounts would have been about the same. I didn't worry about the quality of each pass but I did try not to have any "bad" passes over the hone. These were simple and quick passes (but I do have some practice with this). I'd suggest starting at 20 if your crazy enough (or frustrated enough) to try my method.

Then 50-60 laps with .5 micron paste applied to balsa wood. This is a back honing (stropping) motion. Then I looked at the edge again with my microscope and just looked to make sure it was smooth. Not sharp, not pretty, none of that. Just smooth. In fact, they all looked just like "black ice". The sides went from shiny and scraped up to smooth looking black ice.

Stropped lightly

Shaved with all of them today, face is smooth like glass everywhere.

Very, Very, nice and so comfortable. What a relief, finally!