Questions on Shapton Glass Stones
I have used Shapton glass stones for knives for a few months. I have a set from 500 to 16k for the Edge Pro sharpener. I am very happy with them for knives. Right now I have an 8k bench stone and am using it as my last stone for razors (which I'm learning to sharpen). I'm getting my razors shave ready and get some good shaves with them by using the 8k and then a strop. I've read and been told that an 8k stone is just fine as the final stone before stropping. But a fineer grit like the Norton 12k is icing but a very nice piece of icing. I have ordered a Shapton glass 4k stone to pair with my 8k for razors. I like this because I'll also be using them for knives. I have questions though. The random scratches I've seen mentioned here I have seen on knives also. I have thought when I get them it was probably not spending enough time removing scratches from a previous coarser stone. My random scratches have been anywyere from 1/8" to 1/4" apart with a mirror finish between them. I'll talk about knife edges for a minute because the bevels can be much wider. Let's say a coarse diamond stone leaves scratches deeper than most of the scratches for that grit. Then I use a fine grit or even extra-fine grit stone. When the "normal" scratch pattern from the coarse stone is gone after progressing to an extra-fine grit stone this stone will be abrading the smooth area and since cutting is slower when the surface area is larger it takes a long time to remove enough steel from the smooth area to get to the bottom of the larger scratches. I hope that made sense. I can picture it easier on knivex. The bevels on my razors are very small. Anyway, when I have random scratches after using about any really fine grit stone I have attributed the scratches to one of the coarser stones that aren't as visible until the finer grits make the bevel look good. The good part of the bevel just makes the ugly scratches jump out. Since I didn't see them until I used an 8k stone may not mean they weren't there until I used the 8k stone. They may have been there all along, I just didn't notice them in amongst the "normal" scratch patterns of the other stones. I have not taken the effort to prove or disprove this. It's just a thought I've had.
Lynn uses the Norton 4k and 8k stones on his DVD so if it wasn't for me wanting to use my stones on knives and razors both I probably would have gotten them. But, does anyone have any thoughts on using the Shapton glass 4k and 8k? I may get a finer grit in the future but I have hard, thin leather strops with sprays as low as .1 micron so I hope I don't need a 16k Shapton glass. I would probably NOT go with that stone anyway. There seem to be better alternatives for razors for less money.
Thanks for any help.
Jack
PS edit:
About the scratches. I understand when honing anything under a 4k is only needed when the razor needs restoration or is really dull. This may make my assumption about scratches from 3 grits below in progression mute when dealing with razors. Is this true?