Next up was the quarter micron diamond spray, also from Hand American:



I've been alternating stroke directions to make the new scratches easier to see.

Next came the .125 CBN spray from Ken at Precise Sharpening:



It gets confusing here, scratches running everywhere, don't seem to be making much improvement.

I decided to check out plain leather again, first top grain horse butt, moistened with distilled water:



and then top grain horse butt dry:



hmmm.....

At least our little sedge (or chicken foot) shaped scratch is getting more shallow.

At this point, I was unsatisfied with the polish level and decided to drop back down and repeat the following progression: 1 boron carbide> .5 micron chromium oxide> .25 micron diamond> .125 CBN



I didn't photo each step, just worked quickly through the progression to get back to .125 microns. Now we're getting somewhere!

Here is where things get really interesting - I decided that the bevel was polished sufficiently and we'd be able to examine the scratches from the strops in question, so I began a descending progression, starting with the 3.5 micron diamond and top grain leather strops:



Go figure....

The sedge/chicken foot shaped scratch is almost gone.

Descending yet further to the 5 micron diamond and top grain leather strops, stroking in the opposite direction. Note what has happened to our little sedge shaped scratch: