Thanks! Yes, the 14 is a great shaver, unsurprisingly.
I have a very simple honing setup, nowhere near the variety of stones and strops you and @gcgallant have:
A Naniwa combination stone with a 3k side and a 10 k side, a Naniwa lapping plate to keep both sides flat, a canvas strop loaded with chromium oxide, a soft leather strop, and a thick, firm, shiny latigo leather strop.
I set bevels with the 3k, with mostly trailing strokes, and frequently stop to strop (even palm strop, following your suggestion a few weeks back 😉) and test the edge on a styrofoam packing peanut. Once I’m happy with the edge, I switch to the 10K side and here I do exclusively trailing edge strokes. I also frequently interrupt to strop and test the edge.
When I’m happy with the edge on the packing peanut, I dry the razor and give it a good stropping on the canvas loaded with chromium oxide. I repeat this process until I’m satisfied that I can push cut the packing peanut with almost no effort. At this point I give it also good stropping on the soft leather strop and test again. I have a feeling that the soft leather is better at deburring freshly honed edges than the firm latigo and it’s breaking fragile bits of the edge. If the edge is still good after this, it’s usually good for dozens of shaves before I get the itch to home again.
Someday, I’ll want to try some of those natural stones that you and gcgallant rave about. I have tried edges on jnat stones from gcgallant, but I can’t confidently pretend to feel the difference between synthetic edges and natural stone edges yet, and I’d like to experiment with them more.
Another thing is that I really enjoy stainless steel razors and from what I understand natural stones are a little bit on the soft side for honing stainless steel, and that instead of abrading the chromium carbide precipitates in the steel they rip them out, leading to scratchy and fragile edges. Have you tried honing stainless steel on natural stones?