I'm learning the ancient dark art of honing. I've got myself a King 800, a Norton 4k/8k and a Chinese 12k. I've been told that the King and the Norton are soft hones that require frequent lapping but I honestly have no point of reference to measure what that means. Does it mean I should lap after honing each razor? Two? Three?

I've been lapping on sandpaper and glass, seems to work OK. I've only done each stone the once when they were new and I used the pencil mark trick as an indicator. I could do that again, I just don't want to be wasting lots of sandpaper unnecessarily. I've only completely honed one razor on them so far but I had to go back and revisit each stone a couple of times before I got the razor right. (Hey, it was my first try. I did get it there in the end.)

What do you guys think? I know I could buy a lapping plate and just use it all the time but I'm only on a sandpaper budget at the moment. One thing at a time.