Hello All,
I'm new here, but not exactly new to straight shaving...I began about 9 years ago, and made the switch for about 2 yrs. and then we had a baby girl and time/distraction precluded it. I have now returned to it. During the timeframe I was straight shaving then, I was honing with a Shapton Professional 1500, then a 5000 and getting a fairly mirror finish before going to the strop and getting pretty good shaves. Always looking for improvement, I added a Shapton 15000. The first time I put the razor on the 15000, I noticed a new (more coarse) scratch pattern in the bevel and the side of the spine. I've been sharpening things for about 25 yrs, and I know that is not a thing that should happen with a finer grit stone. I sent it back to Shapton, they lapped it, and I suppose they tested it as well, then sent it back and said it was fine; however, I got the same result. Forward to now, I tried it again and to no surprise, the same thing happened. The shave was good, but the scratch pattern was definitely not as good as when it came off of the 5000 grit. I am meticulous about cleaning the previous grit from the razor, my hands, I use new cleanup towels, etc. to make sure I'm not cross contaminating stones before I move on to finer grits. Anyone ever experienced this or have any ideas? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Jamie