“Tricia”:
I started out with the three PP1 sets: 100/200, 400/600, 800/1000), then added the 1200/1600 ceramic stones. I also bought a pair of strops with the 5/3.5 diamond pastes. Frankly, the ceramic stones never “felt right” although the scratch patterns seemed uniform enough. They still “feel scratchy” to me. The strops polish up the bevels very nicely and I think you’d be very happy with the results.
I’ve since bought the “micro-fine” ceramic stones. They were very rough when new, but I scrubbed them together face-to-face and now they work beautifully. I also bought another set of strops and a bottle of the 0.5 micron spray slurry. Probably overkill for someone who does it for fun.
What’s not clear to everybody is that you don’t need to stone out every trace of grit lines to reach a polished condition. You can polish an edge to look really mirror-like, but if you look at it under a microscope, you’ll see all kinds of scratch marks. I’d get a set of strops and the 5/3.5 pastes and look at the results they produce. If you still think you need to, buy a set of something to fill in the grit gap.
And thank you for clearing up the issue of your username. I was thinking that I’d have to stop using the term “gents” when addressing my fellow forum residents.
Say hi to Tricia and thank her for helping you to join our forum.
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