Revival of this thread is very timely for me – I'm looking for some help to get the best performance out of my Spyderco Ultra Fine stone and a little advice on related sharpening questions. I'll confess that like Chris Grigg's said "I'm all for excessive sharpening"– I don't mind spending a little extra time to get the best edge I can.

First a bit of background: I went through a set of the 3 Sigma power stones (f/ Stu) which I liked very much. My only complaint was that the finest grit stone was really easy to gouge, particularly when freehand sharpening narrow chisels.

Now I have three Shapton Pro's : 1,000, 4,000 and 8,000 (I'm not 100% sure but I think those are the grits).I finish stropping on a piece of hardwood with green rouge. Using this system I get an outstanding edge, although I'm not a 100% consistent when free hand sharpening. I think I may be occasionally dubbing the edge when stropping?

1) How much pressure should I apply when stropping and how many passes on each side of the blade? I'm never sure if I should use moderate pressure or just lightly glide the blade down this strop?

2) Is the Spyderco UF a finer grit than the Shapton 8,000 – in other words does it make sense to use that as my final finishing stone or is the difference in particle size/finished edge so small as to not be worth the time?

3) I really like the hardness of the Spyderco UF, it seems almost impossible to gouge. I spent about 30 minutes with an Atoma plate flattening the Spyderco UF. I'm still not 100% sure it's flat. The Atoma plate is several years old – it flattens the Shapton's fine, but doesn't work nearly as well on the Spyderco. I've also been using 1,000 grit sandpaper with sanding block to try and get a uniform flat surface in between uses.

My problem with the Spyderco is it seems like every time I remove the burr on the flat side of the blade, steel particles lodge in the surface of the stone and they need to be scrubbed off with a scouring pad before the stone is smooth again. If I skip this step, it feels like the metal particles lodged in the surface of the stone leave a rough surface.

Does anyone else have this problem? I just use water as a lubricant, maybe adding some detergent would help?

Any and all thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated!

All the best, Mike