Im getting ready to go shave with mine. I had to use 3 layers with it because it had some wide hone wear. It was even thankfully but still wide. The first time I honed with it, I used my standard progression. Set bevel on diamond 1k and then coti with heavy slurry as mentioned above and then I used my Trans black arkie. Well it shaved but not a lot and only WTG. So I am thinking maybe the ark was too hard for it so I am going to try it with just a coti edge and see what happens. It is a beautiful blade and definitely my favorite as for looks but not yet in the shave department, at least not till I crack the code on honing it.