Thread: Joe Chandler wootz steel wedge issues

Hey guys, I've recently picked up an amazing razor. It's a Joe Chandle 6/8 wootz steel wedge with mammoth ivory scales, I love it! When it came to me it was a long long way from shave ready I have honed it using a 5k SS, 8k SS, 12k SS and finished with a nakayama asagi. After stripping I easily got HHT 4 and more importantly had one of the most amazing shaves!

Despite this I just feel I can still get more from ths amazing bit of steel. When I look at the bevel (just with naked eye is no loupe) there re still a lot of easily visible honing marks all over the bevel. I even went back and more than doubled the amount of laps I normally do whilst honing......still no joy. Do I need to take it back to a 1k chosera and then go again? Any help would be appreciated it's really bugging me!

"Honing scratches" aren't a problem. Many of my blades have them. Going back to the 1K will create more. Honing on higher grits may eventually erase them, but the blade won't be any sharper because of it.

Originally Posted by Thetalai

Hey guys, I've recently picked up an amazing razor. It's a Joe Chandle 6/8 wootz steel wedge with mammoth ivory scales, I love it! When it came to me it was a long long way from shave ready I have honed it using a 5k SS, 8k SS, 12k SS and finished with a nakayama asagi. After stripping I easily got HHT 4 and more importantly had one of the most amazing shaves!

Despite this I just feel I can still get more from ths amazing bit of steel. When I look at the bevel (just with naked eye is no loupe) there re still a lot of easily visible honing marks all over the bevel. I even went back and more than doubled the amount of laps I normally do whilst honing......still no joy. Do I need to take it back to a 1k chosera and then go again? Any help would be appreciated it's really bugging me!

have you tried to shave with the razor?
I'd worry about scratches if the shave is not good, if you are using synthetics to hone your razors you will always have some scratches left.

If by "honing marks" you refer to scratches on the bevel, these are usually not considered a bad sign per sé.
I myself find them irritating and always try to get a perfect polish, even though the razor might have shaved just fine.


First of all, test shave. If the blade shaves nice I would think twice about resharpening it just because of the scratches.
Removing scratches from hard steel is a real PITA. I had this more than once with my three different TI C135, which is hard as rock.

The coarse abrasive creates scratches, and the fine abrasive is not able to remove them. If you need to remove them, prepare for a lot of work.
For these ultra hard steels I use 3M lapping film. This usually gives the best polish money can buy. I recommend a 5µm for bevelsetting and a 3µm for prepolishing. Both AluOx.
For the perfect polish I finish on 1µm diamond lapping film. You could go with 1µm AluOx, but the diamond just cuts hard steels better and is a little faster

When I first came to SRP there were a group of members whose hobby it was to simonize their bevels. They weren't happy if there was a scratch pattern discernible. They would post about it and new guys, like myself, were misled to think that if the bevel didn't shine like a new dime it wasn't "there." Fortunately for me I bought some shave ready razors honed by Lynn and others. First thing I did, following the shave, was to put them under the eye loupe and the microscope. Plenty of scratch pattern on all ...... and it was more than a few razors. Long story short, get it to shave well and forget about the polished look. TBH nowadays once I know there are no chips I don't look at the bevel any closer than the naked eye. YMMV. Just IMHO.

Thanks for the response guys, the shave is amazing I guess it's the fact that they are seemingly so obvious compared to my other razors it was bugging me! I will go away content with the fact that it is an amazing shaver!