Originally Posted by
kevint
Hi Jules. Takeshi makes many good points in his letter to you; but I do not see what makes it "another thought". What he describes is the same method that was demonstrated by Jim, which is the same as shown in the photo tutorials found on Japanese websites selling razors- those seen in the Sharpening Wakamisori thread.
Lets not get hung up that your Takeshi says after the ura is polished we do not need to "sharpen" that side anymore.
"All we have to do is to remove sliding the blade several times (on the back side blade on the stone) coming up metal (beard) from the front side after sharpned the front side."
which means everytime we sharpen the omote we polish the ura with a few strokes. When sharpening "similar, almost the same" tools: chisel, plane knife, on coarse, medium stone we work to produce a definite bur. Using fine finish hone it becomes virtually impossible to produce a bur detectable by even the most sensitive fingertip.
Once the ura is properly polished it need never be returned to the coarse or medium stone even though the omote may be sharpened on these, the ura is only rubbed on the finish hone to remove the bur. As well when the finish stone is reached a few strokes are given on the ura to give a smooth return to the edge even though a bur cannot be detected.