I have an edgepro that I use for sharpening knives, scissors, and chisels. It's a waterstone mounted on a rod that is push/pulled back across the blade. It finally dawned on me a few nights ago that it might be good for straights. I emailed the guy that makes the sharpener and he sent back some suggestions for straight sharpening. I've sharpened up 2 straights this way so far and am very pleased with the results.

The first straight sharpened was a "best quality" made in solingen. My wife got it for me about 15 years ago from the now defunct Cutlery World after I butchered my face a few times with some of my grandfather's old straights. At the time I had no idea new razors were not shave ready. You can guess how that went! This razor honed up easily in about 20 minutes with the rod based system. I used the 800, 2000, and 6000 grits. These are American grit numbers. The Japanese equivalents to these (like those used on the Norton waterstones) would be something around 2,000, 5,000 and 12,000 but this whole grit conversion stuff is messy. Anyway, it gave me a nice shave following morning.

The second straight was one of two ebay wapis (the more recent wapis people have some doubts about) that I got mainly to practice honing with. The wapi took about 45 minutes. I behaved and went slowly, monitoring the edge closely as I progressed through the grits. I played around a little at the end and added a two bevel hone as the last step. It was something I read about on Tim Zowada's web page and perhaps here in the forums. The two bevel produced a remarkably sharp edge to the touch that was smooth and polished under the microscope. The shave with it was a little scary. Reminded me of shaving with a DE razor. Very close and smooth but also unforgiving. The styptic pencil saw some action.

Under the microscope, the scratch marks, polish and uniformity of the bevel looked similar to those on razors I have that were honed by respected members of this forum. They all shave pretty nice although I doubt I will be doing the two bevel hone for awhile.

I have not given up on hand honing. In fact, I have barely even started learning how to hand hone. I'm planning on honing the other new wapi with the more traditional 4K/8K norton, yellow corticule route and comparing them. The rod based system should keep me up and shaving while I learn how to hand hone. Anyone else try something like this?