I just honed for the first time on a new Norton 4k/8k that I lapped using wet/dry sandpaper on a ceramic tile. I used my best impersonation of the "circle method" via Lynn's great YouTube video. After doing the entire regimen once, the razor still did not seem like it was there - I went again through the whole progression. Again, the hair on my arm was not really "popping" above the skin. I went a third time and barely had that test pass and decided to strop and shave with it (the only true test is the shave test, right?).

Good comfortable shave, not fantastic, but certainly passable.

My question is, what next? Get better with the Norton 4k/8k only honing? Invest in a finishing stone?

Details: It is a Dovo Best Quality I bought from SRD around Christmas. It has been treated as well as I can (being new and prone to incorrect stropping, etc). The strop is an SRD red latigo with Crox pasted premium fabric - which I did use (8 laps) before going to leather. Razor was uncomfortable before this causing me to switch back to DE, it felt good enough today to go back to the str8.