When I became aware of the excellence of some Japanese chisels I remember these were linked with waterstone sharpening. I was dutiful but untalented at this. Now, I like oil-based diamond paste and use it on my western chisels and plane irons. I'm making a wood model of the treasury building at Petra and needing a certain chisel width, I grabbed one of my Japanese chisels. It needed sharpening, so with some trepidation I used my usual 2000 - 14,000 grit - chromium oxide strop sequence and was happy to achieve a nice shine on the white steel with really good sharpness. I think I would have been exiled for this in the days when hand tools were resurgent in a much needed revolt against Black and Decker Workmate/jigsaw woodworking, but I wonder if what I did was so bad?