Hitting the Stones Again:

Yesterday, I tried a popular method with my Norton 4/8K combo stone called the "CIRCLE METHOD". Not only did it NOT WORK for me, it was a complete disaster. I had to repeat my stropping routine just to salvage my shave this morning. So I went back and watched the YouTube video closely and basically it was definitely NOT ME OR THE RAZOR. This method simply does not work. So I went back to the way I first tried using this stone along with a little extra time on the 8K side of the stone and I'll soon see how I did tomorrow when I shave. Honing is a lot of work and it took a long time to get all 3 of my razors done:

The circle method involves lay the blade flat like so, but I didn't do that this time. This time I done back and forth half strokes:

I got a really good slurry right away and the last time I got this, the shaves were epic. But we'll soon see when I shave tomorrow:

Next I went the 8K side and used the same technique:

This side takes a tad bit longer to get a slurry going but that's normal because it's a much smoother stone compared to the other side:

Next I went back to the 4K side and repeated the entire process from start to finish:

After I finished up back on the 8K side, I performed 15 round trips on my 3 by 8 inch pasted balsa wood strop:

Then I followed up with my normal stropping routine:

My stropping routine is as follows. 10 round trips on the pasted linen. 15 round trips on the clean linen. 25 round trips on the scrub leather and then I done 50 round trips on the Smooth leather. How I did on these razors will be determined tomorrow when I shave.