Odd bevel setting - Junk blade???

I'm trying to hone a blade that is behaving rather oddly...

I have a bevel mostly established, there is just a small round at the edge... (similar to what it would look like after passing the edge over glass)
When I use a stone that I would normally use to set a bevel it gets duller. There is no wire edge forming, but the round area widens on a "bevel setter".
The blade almost acts like it should if all of my stones were two grits lower on a normal razor. (my 1K acts like a 250, 8k acts about like 1k, etc...).

Believe it or not, the best luck I've had on making it feel sharper, feeling better on TNT and looking better under a microscope is by working it on a barber hone and a C12K alternating. Even stepping down to a 4K makes it worse. (bear in mind, I don't have a bevel completely set here. When I get it about as best as I can, it will just start to bite in on a TPT)

SUMMARY: I'm at a point where it's not getting any better on a barber hone, C12k, or Coti w/ water... Dropping down a grit makes it worse, and I have to work awhile on the higher grits to get it back to where it was.

Is this blade just junk? Perhaps the steel is too soft to take an edge?

(btw... There is no micro-chipping at all under the microscope, and the bevel looks great other than that the edge is persistently rounded)

did the razor once look anything at all like this?

http://tinyurl.com/yae33ko

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

did the razor once look anything at all like this?

---

Thanks Lee!

It looked exactly like that, except that it was mirror polished and had new scales. I guess that's why you should hone them BEFORE you put numerous hours into them...

Btw, I know it never got too hot during buffing as I held it in my bare hand and water dipped when my hand got too warm.

Huge thanks to Lee for the advice in the chat last night!!!

A couple of hours and a lot of spine wear on the low grits later I got through the bad metal, whatever it was, and was able to put a good edge on this razor.
If I ever do this over again I will tape the spine until I get to where the bevel is set with tape.

So... I have some spine wear, but at least it will shave. (I hope! I haven't shave tested yet, but it passed all of my preliminaries)

Thanks again Lee.