On the DVD, Jeff advises using the stone grader to keep the stone nice and clean so it will work as it should. When I am done sharpening a chisel, my stone has lots of black streaks on it. When I try using the grader, it makes no difference at all. I broke down and bought the diamond truing tool. That worked all right, but after sharpening one plane iron, I was right back where I started, with all the black streaks, and the grader has no effect. What gives?
You're babying the stone grader. Lean on it. In extreme cases, tip it up so that only the corner is engaged.
OK so maybe I treated it like a baby, I didn't want to hurt it! I followed your instructions and gave it a good scrubbing. Clean as a whistle now. The only problem I'm having now is the same one Spad011 is having: no luck flattening the back of chisels or hand planes. This would be a nice thing to cover in an on-line video.