I am new to honing. I first tried it I think on Monday, and it didn't go good. I made the blade duller than it was before. I tried the X strokes and I had a hard time keeping the blade balanced. I tried it again two days ago, it didn't go well either. I tried doing regular up and down strokes, but that didn't help. So today I came in with a new plan. I went back to X strokes, except this time I lightly placed my free hand index finger on the spine above the toe of the blade to keep the blade balanced while I did the X strokes. Doing that really helped. I was able to keep the blade nice and balanced. As far as the amount of strokes, it turns out I wasn't doing enough. Today I did 40 strokes on the 4K side, and 80 strokes on the 8K side. The results? OOOHHH YYYEEEAAAHHH! It was by far the best results I've gotten so far. When you're doing things correctly, it so fun. Thanks for all your help!
