Fooling around with an antique store blade that shaves, but pulls in a few spots, despite following the recommended steps. Pulled out the kids' digital microscope to check out the bevel.

First look didn't seem particularly bad. A decent polish with a few deep scratches that need ironing out. (Note, the very apex of the bevel isn't jaggedly, that's just me forgetting to clean carefully before picking up the micro)



A look on the other side identifies the likely culprit(s). I think I spy 3 microchips in this snapshot.




It also shows me that I need work evening out the honing stroke, as the pull stroke has resulted in a fairly polished bevel, but the push stroke hasn't.

But for the roughness, I could live with a couple of microchips; the shave is what counts for me. Here I think a little extra time on the Naniwa 5k should do the trick; the Nani 8k is probably too fine to get it done within a reasonable time. The chips don't seem big enough to go down to 1k, and I don't have a Nani 3k (yet!)

This may have solved the mystery. Thanks, kids!