Angle matters more than grit
I spent two years buying finer stones before realising my angle was inconsistent between strokes. Fixing that mattered more than any stone upgrade, and cost precisely nothing to fix once I'd actually identified it as the problem.
- A honing guide, if your hand isn't steady yet — there's no shame in using one indefinitely, either
- One consistent angle, every stroke, on every stone in the progression
- A strop at the end — it matters more than it looks like it should, and takes seconds once it's part of the routine
What changed once the angle was fixed
The finer stones I'd already bought suddenly started delivering the results I'd expected from them the whole time — they weren't the problem, my technique feeding into them was. A consistent angle at a mid-range grit outperformed inconsistent technique at a fine grit every single time I compared the two directly.
The strop was the last piece, and the one I'd dismissed longest as an unnecessary extra step. It isn't. A few passes on leather after the final stone removes a burr that no amount of extra stone time actually addresses, and it takes less time than reading this paragraph.
None of this needed expensive equipment to fix — it needed slowing down and actually paying attention to what my hands were doing, which is a less satisfying answer than "buy a better stone" but the honest one.