I'm not sure why you do this but it's of coarse a personal preference.Yesterday I received a new Gold Dollar W59. After bread-knifing the excessive (for me) smile out of the blade ....
Some of my best shavers are smiling blades like the AUBRIL 139 below.
With a smiling razor there's a smaller contact patch which I find makes tricky parts like, for me around the chin, much easier to navigate. There's also the slight scything action due to the blade shape but I suppose that's debatable.
I have one of the 3k/8k Chinese hones that I've used about twice as I don't trust the grit ratings. Might be ok for knives but I won't let it near a razor.No-brand Chinese. I bought some Chinese synthetics; 400, 1k, 3k, 8k and 10k. These were used for bevel-set and early refinement, still finishing on film and balsa.
My main reason for trying the Cnat is to see if I can eliminate the need for films and go straight from the Cnat to balsa. To do this, I first need to see if I can get a good shaving edge off the Cnat.
Since your Cnat is rectangular would you consider lapping one side to say 320 W/D and the other to 1000? This will make it more useful in that you can grit jump on the same hone (sort of) I did this with one of my Jnats where one side is matt and the other shiny.
While naguras are nice and all they're very pricey and hard to get (reliably)I don't have a nagura.
Don't be afraid of using some much cheaper slip stones in their place. I'll DM you some info.
I'd agree that when trying to learn a new stone you want to remove as many variables as possible to narrow down what the Cnat is capable of and the biggest variable here is if you can trust the 8k.Without getting into the weeds of particle size and grit scales, this kind of makes me wonder how coarse your 8k really is, relatively speaking (relative to your films, anyway). Have you tried going from the 3um film to the Cnat?
If I was doing it I might approach it from the other side altogether. @rbscebu you know what a good edge looks and feels like so use a 0.01 balsa edge and "downgrade it" to the Cnat. Film edges are great but the speckled edge you can get from a natural means it doesn't want to stick to your skin like the perfectly shiny film edge might. IMO that's what makes naturals more comfortable.
For those arguing about Cnat Vs Jnat I think Japan has the edge in that it sits on a subduction zone where the oceanic (heavier) plate slips under the land plate providing the ideal pressure/heat to form the perfect hones but what they make up for in quality hones they suffer in regular earthquakes.
Good stuff. Remember some people don't like to finish on pure water so the tiniest hint of slurry can make a difference. As you have a load of identical blades one with water and one with the lightest slurry should be easy to do.It's Working!
Looks like I am starting to master this Cnat stone.
Just as a matter of interest does the Cnat auto-slurry at all? Just trying to get a feel for how hard it is. A finisher shouldn't auto-slrry at all IMO.