Amen to Jim B's comment. As you read my story, I did everything WRONG, till Ron walked me thru the process. I even went so far as to type up the steps and put them in my KME kit.
Big issue is that many of us get tired trying to raise a wire on the off side with the coarsest stone. If you don't get that "wire" on the off side, no matter what or how long, you won't get it sharp.
Ron's told us all, if it's not sharp when you're done with the coarsest stone, you're NOT done!
The rest just polish the edge and tooling marks from the coarsest medium.
If you're trying BH's some are exceptionally hard and had very different bevels/angles. The regular stones are hard to remove enough material to get a wire on the off-side, or change the angle of the bevel!
That is why Ron came up with better diamond stones. I wore my original diamond stones out trying to sharpen some tough steel BH's. I got his newer diamonds and got much better results. Same with some of the newer S/S knife blades!
I once worked for 45 minutes with the coarsest stone and still had no wire... that can be very frustrating... So then I invested in better grade stones and walla!
Do as JimB said, call Ron. It's not the KME's fault, it's 99.9% us as the operator. Once you figure out what you're NOT doing you NEED to do, it will be like eZ peezy!
Do it! Call the man! If he's on the line with another, leave a # where he can call you back. He will!