4K Side is Gone:

Well that pretty much finishes this honing session off and the 4K side of this stone is now just about gone. So there will NOT be any more bevel setting going on with this stone period. This is now a touch up stone ONLY mainly because it would take way too long to set a bevel on the 8K side of the stone. I'd be there all day trying to set a bevel on the 8K side:

You see these lower grit Norton water stones are softer than what most people hone straight razors with and they wear down even faster when you hone Gold Dollar and Gold Monkey razors mainly because you have to remove more metal than you would on the higher end razors such as Boker and Ralf Aust and what not which is common knowledge basically:

Now when a softer water stone gets down this low, you can still use it. But I would NOT use for nothing more than a touch up or a brief refresh ONLY which would be roughly no more than 10 to 25 round trips at the most. The good thing is that this gives me an excuse to buy more honing stones which brings a "joker" type of smile to my face because I love honing. It's extremely addictive to say the least and a very enjoyable hobby.