A few more things to consider.
For a month or so, I did a test with 2 razors and a b-hone (this is just a barber's hone).
In general b-hones do what they are supposed to do, but rarely are they worth mentioning. I might have one now.
I've been reading about how some Cattaraugus hones improve 8k edges and are quite competent. Now the problem with b-hones is that sometimes or maybe most of the time, they aren't exactly straightforward considering condition. So I took my time reading and doing this, to get as close as possible to that gummy feeling they wrote about.
Usually b-hones have a slower/finer side, even those that aren't double sided. And usually that site is the one with the label. But with Cattaraugus hones, the label side is the fastest. Keep this in mind if you have no papers for it. These papers are also interesting as they advise for stropping after every honing session and to finish with light short passes. This is a good approach for a variety of finishers (thuringians, coticules and so on).
With everything in good working order, I got my first razor and did 24 passes on each side. That's actually a number suggested for this particular hone at the top end. And ended up with the sharpest this razor ever been. To be fair, a razor I did struggle with sometimes, but easy-peasy now.
But just how fine is this hone? I can't tell. What I can tell is that I have a fine dressing stone and on anything similar to a Swaty, I get slurry from the dressing stone. With Cattaraugus I got slurry on both sides from the b-hone. This is what I usually use to determine if the b-hone would be interesting, as a first step, after making sure there are no integrity problems (some older hones have binder problems). This means it is quite fine on its own. Anyway, this old hone worked great again and again. For me was a bit of a disappointment really, because made my pile of stones look like completely unnecessary. And for the most part I am aware most of them are redundant, but being made so by a cheap old hone...
Second thing to consider is a bit different as well. I was wondering just what stones exactly would be a nice buy for knives (albeit for light usage) and could be used successfully for razors, too. And I found that the Chosera based Kramer stones do the job nicely. In fact I think I like more the Kramer 1000 (I also have the Chosera 1000).
Took an old razor (carbon) and established the bevel on the 1k. Got it to a very clean edge and shaving hair. Now the problem is that in a normal set, the next stone is the 5000. Most people would say that from 1 to 5 is a big jump, but didn't feel like it here. Took my time on the 5000 and for all intended purposes, the edge really started to shine. This takes a bit more because of the following. I am being asked a lot how do I know when to stop. There are markers. The sound changes. The feel changes. The swarf changes. If the stone remains as clean as possible and all is smooth, that's about it. Even if it's close to this and not the final stone, would still be enough. And finished on a coticule, soap&water, short passes, about 80 since the stone itself is slow. Coticules will make a scratch pattern of their own, but this is normal. The razor could pop hair mid air with no dragging whatsoever. Perfect shave after.
It is worth mentioning that I used no slurry on anything. I killed the edge once after setting the bevel on the 1k and did another 40 alternative passes on it. And once with the 5k. The 1k was conditioned with Atoma 400 and the 5k+coti with Atoma 1200. No stropping between them. No paste stropping done at all.
