I use a waterstone that has 1000 grit on one side and 6000 on the other. The interesting thing is that the 1000 side is about 3/4" thick and the 6000 is 1/4" thick. This gives you the side of the 1000 side specially designed for things like this that you wouldn't want on the main part of the stone. Also works great for plane cap irons.
I also use a pushrod for scraper burnishing. I have several store bought burnishers that are too soft to roll the edge on hard scrapers. An additional plus for pushrods is that they are long enough to keep fingers away from the wire edge of the scraper. Thinking of getting my thumb sliced during burnishing makes my skin crawl.
Sodium is a highly reactive metal. If you know what you're doing it is not hard to handle safely. If you do not, it is easy to get hurt.
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