Thanks Joed! Yeah, I was definitely going by the "more time than money" route here. Right now, I also feel very reluctant to send it off to the experts, so maybe getting some more stones is the best way to go. Since I have a stone which is probably finer than the 8k, I could probably get by with the 4k 8k combo stone. Not too happy about the price though, and when it arrives I just might have already been able to hone it with elbow grease