David, I have been playing around with the Shapton 16000 grit stone. Thus far, I can't tell any difference between one sharpened on that and then stropped, when compared to one that I sharpen to 8000 grit and then go through a progression of stropping compounds, stopping at 1 micron/15000 grit. They are really sharp, and I haven't cut myself yet.... I have played around with some figured big leaf maple chunks of firewood and made some spindles. Big leaf maple just likes to tear out, so there always seems to be some, but I am still pretty new to the skew....
robo hippy