When the edge of a razor is truly sharp, you will not see any light reflecting from the edge. That is also true of knives, plane irons, etc. The reason that you'll see a black line instead of light reflecting is that the edge is actually narrower than the light waves, thus no reflection of light waves. Beyond that, use the hanging hair test, the thumb nail test, etc. The post-it test and the thumb nail test will get you to "factory edge" level and hanging hair test will get you perfect results in a shave.

What you need to do is reestablish the edge by removing a fair amount of metal with something like a DMT 1200 grit extra fine stone, then moving to a 4000 grit blue belgian and then an 8000 grit yellow coticule. You could also do the second step after the DMT with a Norton 4000 and then a yellow coticule. Sharpening is a progressive process and honing is the end of that process. The belgian stones are finishing stones and not used to remove lots of steel which is what you have to do.

I cannot recommend highly enough the practice of honing using magnification. Truly one does not know what is going on at the edge without looking at all parts of the blade on both sides and including the heel and the toe. I use an OptiVisor and I also use the RadioShack 100x lighted magnifier. These are small investments to make and will make you an expert honer fairly quickly.

Howard