Value for money: excellent. I sharpened and polished the blade to 1200 diamonds. I really liked the sharpness. I then removed the black paint from any areas that may have come in contact with the wood during use. It's a bit fiddly to set up, but once set up it worked very well. I removed the mentioned paint using a 3 inch buff on my high speed drill press. It only lasted a few minutes. If you don't remove this color, it will end up on your work piece. After all that I made a Red Oak straight razor and a hand forged blade (leaf spring) π