Since my Gold Dollar 209 needed to be refreshed, I waited until my new stone came in so I could try it out and I've got to tell you that it's an awesome little stone:
First up was the Suehiro 1/3K combo stone and I started with 40 "X" strokes using the weight of the blade only on the 1K side of the stone and I did NOT kill the edge:
Next up was the 3K side of the Suehiro combo stone which I did 40 "X" strokes. I was very impressed with the feel of this stone which was extremely smooth and its cutting speed was pretty fast. I can compared the cutting speed to a shapton glass stone. Under the loupe it left a highly polished edge which I liked very much. Not bad for a $20.95 water stone which includes shipping:
Up next was my Norton 8K and I did 40 round trips and then I did 10 round trips on the nylon webbing of my strop before doing a second set of 40 round trips :
After I did 2 sessions of 40 strokes on my Norton 8K, I did my usual stropping routine of 10 round trips on the nylon webbing, 20 round trips on the scrub leather and 40 round trips on the smooth leather of my strop. Since I didn't kill the edge, My 209 should be more than ready:
This took longer to photograph, write and post up than it did to actually perform this honing session. Once that bevel has been properly set like this razor was, it's pretty smooth sailing and you shouldn't have to reset the bevel again unless you have done some repair work such as remove chips and/or nicks from the edge or if you reground and/or modified the razor.
