Excellent, answer Hoilli, and so true for honing.

For honing, I do believe the 4k or whatever grit you are using to polish after the 1k is the most critical grit to getting a good polish on an edge. If you do not remove the deep 1k stria, you will pay…down the road.

Same goes for sanding and polishing, there are no short cuts, if you want a quality job. And really it does not take… that much, to put in the extra time where needed…