Found a great article on sharpening with awesome pics
Found this document the other day, it tests and documents a couple different methods of sharpening various tools including razors. There is a nice section on whetstones, artificial and natural, as well as stropping with various compounds on leather as well as on buffing wheels. And the best part is that all of the experiments come with scanning electron microscope images of whats really going on.
Enjoy.
http://www.mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin...nifeShExps.pdf
Page 7 has some cool shots of a straight razor.
Page 18 starts the experimentation on whetstones.
Page 43 has a summary and conclusions for all experiments.