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Comment by John Bamford on October 15, 2016 at 8:58

you are right Paul about flattening the stones and I have that covered .

Razors have a built in way of finding the angles , so no jigs required .

I like to use shaving oil to stop corrosion of the blade , works fine for me .

Diamond is very good for my pocket knives , the modern stainless is much easier to handle with it .

The older steel , which is quite fine at the edge is normally easy to sharpen with water stones , it is getting that smooth feeling edge that is the trick with razors and diamond I feel wouldn't be good at that .

The strop is best used after getting a really good edge with stones and helps with the polishing and smoothing .

Unless you use diamond or some other compounds on the various strops available at which point it all gets very complex .

KnifeMaker Comment by Paul S on October 15, 2016 at 8:04

I use DMT diamond sharpening stones and various water stones to sharpen my woodworking planes and chisels. The water stones are very nice but they have to be re flattened after wear now and then with diamond stones. A razor can be more difficult to sharpen if the metal is harder.
With any chisel or plane rocking a tool keeps it from getting its best sharpness. I have not seen tool jigs to keep a razor at a constant angle while sharpening; woodworking stores carry such jigs. Barbers seem to use the strap for honing...made easier by the hollow ground razor..
I have a 10000? grit stone which uses a smaller stone to generate a light coating of sharpening "sludge" before use.
With my sharpened tools Bo-Shield is used to prevent rusting...a razor would likely rust fast if it is high carbon. Bo-Shield is used for bicycle chains and was developed by the Boeing Company.
Some woodworkers use a special tape that replaces water stones. It is disposable and does not have to be sharpened. In use it is attached to a pane of flat glass.
Sorry to go off on this tangent...

Comment by John Bamford on October 15, 2016 at 5:12

Just had a play with this stone and it feels really nice , especially as it isn't a really expensive item . It has put a real mirror finish on two of my razors . One is a newish Dovo that I have been having a hard time with and the other a nice French job which is my current favourite . We will see later how they measure up .

I would never have thought of using such a high grit for knives but now that I have seen the results and the amount of feel from that stone maybe it is time to have a try .

Comment by John Bamford on October 13, 2016 at 9:53

I have an 8000 on the way to add to my razor sharpening collection .

Should be able to do 1000

                               4000

                               5000

                               8000  

                               12000

                               15000

That will hopefully give a good result .