The one part in the sharpening process that I'm struggling with is removing the burr.
Most people do when starting out so don't worry you're not alone.
Also even experienced sharpeners will experience some difficulty every now and then because this is not only an issue of technique, sometimes the steel itself can be uncooperative.
I'm a fairly harsh critic of sharpening books and the sections on sharpening in general woodworking books and this is the main area where I think they fall down. They quite consistently fail to serve their readers because few give a realistic idea of how difficult it can be sometimes to get rid of the last of the burr or wire edge — when user experience with razors & knives, chisels and plane irons has a wealth of anecdotal evidence that says it is quite common for it to be difficult.
In short, most books just don't devote enough column inches to this (and a few other issues) which can leave beginners, and even more advanced learners, wallowing when they encounter a problem. I know I'm not the only one who has "chased a burr" as it's called for minutes and failed to get it to detach. This can be confusing and disheartening because the books make it sound so easy!
As I'm attempting to deburr one side, it twists and goes to the other. I flip the chisel and the burr twists to the other side again.
Again, perfectly normal. Some steels hold on to the burr or wire edge more strongly so it can be much more difficult to remove it on a stone than in other cases. But once the burr is small enough you can, and IMO most of us should, switch to a different method to get rid of the last of it.
I can't seem to completely remove it. Some people lay the chisel flat on the stone and push against the edge. Others pull. Others go sideways. They all claim their method yields great results
All of those can work.
I've tried them all and had success with all three. Although I have my preference woodworkers I have great respect for use one of the other two and get results at least as good if not better than mine so it's clear they can all work and work well if the user is doing it properly.
Note that some steels have a definite preference for edge-trailing, others edge-leading which is something to look into further and experiment with on your own tools.
So how do I get rid of the damn burr anyway?
Whatever works.
Some older guides* say to run the honed edge sideways through an end-grain block to remove the remaining burr. This basically tears the burr off which sounds a little crude but it can work quite well and I still use this method every now and then for a stubborn burr (as I say, whatever works). But after this I will strop and that refines the edge considerably.
Stropping is a great way to finish off honing (or used alone as a honing method) and once the burr is fine enough virtually any type of stropping will remove it without effort. And stropping is good assurance that a very small burr (too small to see with the naked eye) will be removed if present.
I'm going to go into more of the things included in your Question below which don't directly relate to the removing the burr.
Sand the backside flat with 110, 220, 400 grit. Change to DMT diamond stone and go at it with 600 (25μ) and 1200 (9μ) grit equivalent.
I don't know how much of the back you were doing but just to have it said, on most tools only a very narrow band near the edge needs to be flattened and then worked smooth through the grits.
In plane irons it can literally be mere millimetres wide (1/32"-1/64") while with new chisels the flat area will generally end up wider naturally, often being 20-50mm (~1"-2") without any special effort made.
While it's not a mistake to do most or all of the flat of a chisel (or plane iron if you're really masochistic) in general it's a waste of time because it doesn't do anything to improve the performance of the tool.
Do the same thing with the primary bevel.
This is a mistake. If you're planning on creating a secondary bevel anyway you can ignore the primary bevel completely.
The primary could literally be formed on 80-grit paper (you can visualise how rough that would be) and you can still leave it because the honing of the secondary will refine the narrow band of steel at the edge which is all that needs to be refined to create the finished sharp edge.
Note: the weird shape is due to the photo angle; the actual chisel is perfectly square.
It's actually OK if a chisel is slightly out of square. Most freehand sharpeners will creep out of square over time (generally to one side or the other based on which hand is dominant and their overall technique) and it doesn't hamper the usability of the chisel in any meaningful way.
Other people on this site insist that going to 8000 grit is required. Others say that 800 + honing is more than enough.
They're both wrong :-)
Or they're both right. This is partly a matter for each person to decide for themselves — "How sharp do my chisels need to be?" — and partly how anal you are about the appearance of the honed surfaces LOL
Two things to bear in mind. The first is that in the West in the past virtually no working woodworkers in cabinet shops or joinery workshops had more than two sharpening stones available to them and the finer one could be classed as a medium at best by today's standards! And yet quite evidently they didn't have an issue with blunt tools.
The second is that the finer the edge created the more it degrades when steel meets wood. The harder the wood the faster the degradation — with many hardwoods within the first 10 or a dozen cuts! So the superb edge created by 8k, 10k and even 30k is usually transient.
There's much more written about both of these final issues if you want to Google further.
*Just for completeness I'll mention that very old guides can mention that pros (or "experienced Mechanics" as they might be referred to by the writer) often finish off by stroking the edge across the palm of the other hand but as with those guides I wouldn't generally recommend this to the leisure woodworker for a few reasons, the main one obviously being the potential for injury.
