Okay, thanks. Pretty frustrating to put 4 or 5 hours into a knife only to end up with a beautiful blade that won't cut paper. I have probably been using too much pressure. They are quite tore up anyway. Is there less of this effect with the balsa stropps?

Ya I have been buying full sheets and cutting them down. It is substantially cheaper and I like to have them cut much closer to the size of the blank.

The problem I'm having right now is when I finish with the .3 micron film, the knife is very sharp. But after stropping, 1 and .5 spray on leather then .25 and .125 on kangaroo leather, it's not as sharp. Much more polished, but really not that sharp.
Has anyone else had this problem? Am I doing something wrong, obviously I am but I don't see how.

I have been getting the films from Bestsharpeningstones.com. I use the yellow, 12 mic through the white @ .3 in 6 steps total. I bought 3 sets of handles with al blanks from the same site. They last about 3 knives for me but I like that As soon as I get the 1000 diamond scratches out with either 1200 ceramic or the 1.4 mic ceramic, I can go strait to the film progression. Then strop 1 mic down to .125 and have a near perfect mirrored edge with no visible scratches, to the naked eye.

By the way, it is still quite a battle to get those 1000 grit diamond scratches out although I discovered yesterday that it can be done with the 1.4 mic. Micro fine ceramic stones.

The only way I can end up with no visible scratches is to alternate between up and down motions and hilt to tip motions to be sure I have ALL the previous grits scratches out, at least up to the films. Does anyone else do it this way? It seems every time I try to do it all in the same direction, no matter how thurough I think I am being, I end up with a mirror Finish with scattered scratches and scuffs.

I ordered the 800/1000 Chosera and the 2000/3000 Chosera stones yesterday, do you think there is any reason to get the courser Chosera stones if I have the diamond stones through1000. I mean any difference in end result changing to Chosera at 400 as opposed to after the 1000 diamond?

I had come to that conclusion at one point but I think the 1200 ceramic stone still gets the 1000 grit diamond scratches out faster than the micro fine. And my microfine stones are quite a bit newer than the fine as they were back ordered.

That's the kit I got too. That is an impossible step from 1000 diamond to the microfine ceramic stones.
And I agree a 1200/1600 diamond stone would be great, I like the consistency of the diamond stones. It's easy to step up through the grits and get all the last grits scratches out. But there probably is a reason they don't exist.

Thanks for the input.

I think I will order the 800/1000 Chosera stones. Is it easy enough to get the 1000 Chosera scratches out with the 2000 Chosera? Or would the micro fine ceramics be a good enough next step. I really don't like the 1200/1600 ceramics, they seem crumbly and quite inconsistent, so it would be great if I could get around them.

I'm looking for a step after the 1000 grit diamond stones in order to reach a mirrored finish. The next step I have is the 1200/1600 ceramics and I can get to a mirrored finish but to get all of the scratches from the 1000 grit diamonds out takes an excruciating amount of time. Almost 2 hours. Once I get past that point the rest comes easy, I like the 3M lapping films from the yellow 12 micron (1200 grit) down to the white .3 micron, then stropping. I have also tried to go right to the yellow films from the diamond stones but that takes even longer.

So does anyone have an intermediate step? I'm thinking about getting the 800/1000 Chosera stones hoping they will be finer than the diamonds.
But I would like to get some input before buying another set of stones. And on the topic of Chosera stones, the next step from there is 2000/3000 I think. Can you go right from the 1000 to the 2000 Chosera stones? Seems like a big step that's all but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks