One good tip is to use a permanent marker on the bevel initially to determine if you are making contact with the hone, and if you are not you may need to adjust the honing stroke so it is contacting the full length of the bevel.
Another good bevel setting tip for newbies/difficult razors is as follows:
Work on one side of the razor only but count/keep track of strokes until you feel a burr forming on the opposite side of the razor, once you have formed a burr along the whole length of the bevel flip the razor and work the razor exactly the same on the other side until, yep you guessed it, a burr has formed on the other side, now we know for absolute certainty than both sides of the bevel are meeting and are "set", now all that is left to do is remove that burr by normal honing laps, 30 will do it and you are ready to carry on your honing routine. I would test this bevel with what ever methods you are using so you get a feel for what a set bevel feels like, I generally use the thumbnail test and the cherry tomatoe test but as billy has mentioned at 1k it should shave hair.
The one downside to this process is that it can remove a lot of steel so probably best left to crappy practice razors.
Once you get a feel for when a bevel is set you will probably never use this technique again but it is a great learning tool.
Another good bevel setting tip for newbies/difficult razors is as follows:
Work on one side of the razor only but count/keep track of strokes until you feel a burr forming on the opposite side of the razor, once you have formed a burr along the whole length of the bevel flip the razor and work the razor exactly the same on the other side until, yep you guessed it, a burr has formed on the other side, now we know for absolute certainty than both sides of the bevel are meeting and are "set", now all that is left to do is remove that burr by normal honing laps, 30 will do it and you are ready to carry on your honing routine. I would test this bevel with what ever methods you are using so you get a feel for what a set bevel feels like, I generally use the thumbnail test and the cherry tomatoe test but as billy has mentioned at 1k it should shave hair.
The one downside to this process is that it can remove a lot of steel so probably best left to crappy practice razors.
Once you get a feel for when a bevel is set you will probably never use this technique again but it is a great learning tool.