The coral I just restored I decided to try something different since I had to take out chips and start from scratch anyway. I did the passes of circles of about 20-25, how every many it took to get to the end of the stone, then went to x strokes only for bevel setting, then on each previous stone did one pass of circles 20-25 again, then nothing but x strokes all the way to 12k. I liked the results I got personally YMMV. Maybe doing that the circles removed the previous grits marks before the x strokes allowing them to do the majority of the honing It was fun none-the-less. My roundpoint Dovo kept getting a sharp point about 2mm behind the point of the blade, so I used nothing but circles and pigtails through the whole process and only did 5 x strokes to "finish" on the stone like Glen does alot in his videos; it was the best shave I have gotten from that particular razor, even better than when I got it. I just say play around and see what happens, but most important...HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THE PROCESS!