Using a burr to detect if you’re at the apex is all well and good, but if it’s your only tool, you must remember to produce the burr along the entire edge. If you use alternating strokes, detecting a burr might be difficult, so I suggest stoning one side at a time. And burrs won’t tell you if there are microscopic defects along the edge, which is why most of us use loupes or microscopes.
I suggest using a loupe or microscope to identify defects at the beginning and then stay with your lowest apex grit (I usually use 400’s) until they’re all eliminated. After that, you can proceed confidently.
Avoiding uneven bevels is really just a matter of using roughly an equal number of strokes on both sides, especially for the coarser grits. I find that most knives that come to me already have uneven bevels. A customer with a high-end knife and high-end expectations will expect you to equalize the bevels, If I’m sharpening a knife which is part of a guy’s collection, I assume that equal bevels is part of the job, but for most customers’ working knives, it’s not a real concern. . That’s not to say that it isn’t good practice to count your strokes, because it is.
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