Thanks, earcutter! I read a thread here about mineral oil and have dumped the alcohol out of my eyeglasses spritzer and put my mineral oil that I use on my Ozark West cutting boards in this spritzer. It works well to coat the blade with a thin film of mineral oil for now until I figure out what's going on here. I'l check out this Straight Razor Designs strop. I have been watching YT videos from thejapanblade on honing and have priced these japanese stones..... LOL is right, man! Wow! Synthetic will work for me!

I've done some research on the bluing and I started with Hot Salt Nitre Bluing but you are right. This process must be done at 650ºF which I presume is too hot for these blades so I'll look at cold bluing methods. Yes, I did know this is a corrosive process but I was not aware of the reek that you mention. I'll look up the processes. I'd like to have a bright purple/black finish on this blade. We'll see what happens!