Thread: Honing My New Smiling Frederick Reynolds?

Hi All-I got my new/old Reynolds I won from the Bay this week: http://straightrazorpalace.com/aucti...-reynolds.html

Anyway, the blade polished up pretty nicely using just CroX and a couple of old socks. It is a bit loose in the scales (which are pretty lackluster IMO), so I may get Max to work his magic on it. Until then, I couldn't wait to hone it up and try a shave. It is my first Sheffield, first really smiling blade, so I'm a definite honing newbie. Here's what happened on my Nortons:

-Doing some low-pressure circles on the 1k using the marker test, I was able to establish a bevel from heel to toe, with some extra attention on heel and toe. I had to very slightly rock the blade on the ends with fingertips to make contact. The steel seemed really soft, and I got quick results, with lots of feedback.

-I established (and sort of lost) the bevel about 4 times. Every time I would try to do very light rolling X-strokes, I seemed to go backward. Any thoughts? At any rate, after a couple of tries I got a good bevel (grabbing on the TPT, mowing leg hair) all the way across, by sort of pyramiding very light circles from 1-4k. Again, even the lightest x-strokes seemed to take me backward.

-After some very light, modest pyramiding circles between 4-8k, I was afraid of going too far again, so I gave it 10 laps on CrOx linen, then my usual 30/50 linen leather. It passed HHT, and though I didn't have much beard to shave, it very smoothly plowed off some stubble in my neck hollows (where the smile seemed to really shine!).

So am I going to get struck by lightning for honing my 1st smiling Sheffield all the way using a few light circles? Anything I can do to get x-strokes to work? Just curious.

edit: I forgot to add that I used 2 layers of tape on the spine because of previous hone wear, and because I didn't want a massive bevel on the heel and toe. Thanks-aaron