hand sanding is good. I do it most of the time as well. I always back my paper with an old wine cork and at the end of 600 start to sand with WD-40 as the wet component. Any light oil will do, it just has to be super light. I usually start high and then drop down grits as the situation demands. I rarely go below 400 because it can be so hard to get the lower grit scratches out. It does take quite a bit of time, and not all the pitting can go, especially on the very thin ground razors. I go up to 2K with sand paper and then do 000 and then 0000 steel wool and then steel wool with mothers polish and then just the polish. If you want to leave the pitting but get the black out steel wool is my weapon of choice. Once you have it clean and polished with the pitting left you can take 1 to 2K sandpaper and in one direction only take the finish to satin using oil and very light strokes. No back and forth and it will look right. It does take a lot of messing around to make it even but it can be done.