To the OP i can say that as someone who for surely lives even on a different time zone from the closest straight shaver i've had to find out the path all by myself from dull to sharp. Of course it helped a lot as i had sharpened other tools for many years but i did not really have the goal to go. It was more like try, test, try, test sort of thing. Once i learned that no matter how polished my edges are if the bevel isn't set i saw the light. Nowadays sharpening is not rocket science but easy as soon as i can make the bevel set. That is the key to success. Strangely humming around with straights has helped me to get somehow better edges to my kitchen knives as well.