... And I just wanted to let all the newbies out there know that honing is not quite as easy as it looks!! I recently acquired a Norton 4/8k Waterstone, and a cheapo Gold Dollar razor (that I don't care about ruining) to practice honing with. After watching Lynn & gssixgun's videos on Youtube I said to myself "Honestly, how hard can this really be?!", so I lapped the Norton with my DMT 325 and went to town... (my 1k bevel-setter has not arrived yet, so this is all I have to work with).

The razor I'm working with is not sharpened, so the first thing I did was to raise a bit of slurry with the DMT on the 4k side, then I tried the Circles; 40x clockwise going up and 40x counterclockwise coming back down. It immediately became evident that I was NOT providing even pressure across the whole blade as I was leaving water behind me. So I moved on to some X-Strokes and those were not much better; I kept inadvertently lifting the point of the blade & digging the heel into the stone. I think I'm just not used to the resistance you feel on the 4k side and to compensate, I was putting too much pressure on the spine of the blade...I realized that getting even pressure cannot be taught; you really just have to feel it...

Nevertheless, I was miraculously able to get the blade to bite when performing the TPT, and it shaved hairs on my arm with a little coaxing, so I decided to flip the stone over and try the 8k side. MAN is that smooth!! I was observing that my X-Strokes were getting a little more consistent as the water line in front of the blade was nice & even. After doing 15-20 of those, I re-checked the edge on my arm and it was able to shave hairs off with little resistance.

I wouldn't say that the razor is shave-ready by ANY stretch of the imagination, but it's definitely sharper than when I started. I can tell I still have a LOT of work to do on my technique, but the fact that the Norton is somewhat "forgiving" helped me here I think. Overall, I think I did OK for someone who has NO idea what they're doing, but my first honing experience was certainly humbling to say the least! My plan is to not get discouraged and give it another try today...Maybe I'll break out the new 12k Chinese Stone I got as well!

Anyway, I just thought I'd share my experience. There is something inherently "Zen" to honing; it really is a relaxing process that it seems like anyone (with the right amout of patience) can learn!