Thread: Norton 4K makes it more dull than 1K? So confused...

This is how I was honing.....

Spine taped.
Naniwa 1K.
Running the razor perpendicular to the whetstone (no leading or trailing).
First off use some pressure on the strokes (I did a lot maybe 100+ strokes each side on the 1K).
Once I get a completely even coverage all the way across the bevel I do 15-20 light strokes.

At this point the razor is capable of shaving some (not all) arm hairs.
Looking through 15x loupe, I see a very minimally jagged edge, hardly enough to notice.
The grain of the hone is consistent all the way across the bevel.

So I move on to Norton 4k
Create a little slurry (I'm not sure if this is an acceptable slurry or not) by flattening the whetstone with a 220 diamond hone, and dliute it with water.
2 Strokes each side with a huge trail (ran the razor way off perpendicular) to create a noticeable difference in the honing grain angle.
Inspect with loupe, and the new angled grain is consistent all the way across both sides of the bevel.

Then I continue honing (I didn't remove spine tape), doing 30-40 perpendicular strokes with less pressure than the first strokes on the 1K, but still not the lightest I could go.

Here's the weird part; I now take a look with my 15x loupe, and the grain is still consistent on both sides. The edge looks even better, with that barely noticeable jaggedness completely gone, and my eye can't tell that it's not a completely straight edge. But then I try shaving my arm hair with it.....and ABSOLUTELY NO hairs pop/shave off!!!

The razor just completely glides all the way over any hair it touches, and instead I actually notice it's scraping all the dead skin off my arm and leaving the hairs untouched. Weirdest thing I've ever seen with my razor! I'm at a higher grit, it has been going good all along, and it looks much better at this stage, but performs much worse!

Anybody have an idea of what the heck's going on?

Edit: I can literally run the razor the whole way down my arm, not pop a single hair, and have a bevel full of dead skin at the end.

Edit: One thing I have always noticed is that my Norton 4K has always had a very coarse feel to it when honing and to the touch. As opposed to my Norton 8k, Naniwa 1K and 12k, all of which feel very glassy/silky/smooth to the touch and when honing. I remember reading about there something being wrong with the 4K, and that if you buy a new one it's best to lap 1/8 of an inch or so off of it to get to the good part. I did procede to lap a lot of the hone off, maybe not a full 1/8, I'm not sure. Maybe that's got something to do with my problems.