Thread: Paper testing razors

Originally Posted by Slurryer

If you can tolerate the flaming that's sure to follow, could you outline how you're using paper, with the important bits you've discovered along the way?

Search the internet for paper cutting tests for straight razors. You are not going to find many results because paper cutting tests have not proven to bring anything to the table as far as edge diagnostics in about 200 years of straight razor shaving.

A test that causes some damage, which can be reversed in 3 or 4 or even 10 passes on a finisher seems like a promising test. I'm definitely curious.

The purpose of testing the edge is to see how the refinement progresses towards the final finishing stage. At the final finishing stage one needs to have a fine enough test to be able to judge the result of the honing job. Such test is the HHT, and even that is not too consistent because it depends on hair type. Still hair is about the finest thing one can find to test their edge with. What information is one going to gain from cutting paper at the finishing stage of the honing when paper is a lot thicker than hair and it has nothing of the properties of hair? Paper is a lot easier to cut than hair. Cutting paper does not present refinement over HHT as edge testing method. The shaving test presents such refinement of razor edge test.

I do not mind novel approaches, but they have to have some merit to them and be applicable to the purpose. One has to have some kind of proof that their proposed method of testing edges indeed is useful and gives information that can be used to improve upon the results, and is not obtainable through already existing methods.

In straight razor honing what one is interested in really is proper bevel set, that is probably 90% of the honing of a razor. Once that is done the rest is refinement of the edge, unless something is wrong with the steel the steps all the way up to the finishing hone are pretty straight forward and uneventful. Finishing the blade is where one has to make sure the edge is as refined as possible off the used finisher, and then the shave test shows if the honing job was successful. At the finishing stage, the one test that can be used is the HHT, but that only shows that the blade is sharp enough to cut hair, not how well the razor ill shave.

Finally about paper cutting. Paper cutting will work at 1k just as fine, as a matter of fact, the more refined the edge the less successful in cutting paper, you have to have some teeth there to grab the paper. Find a piece of paper that is as thin as hair and give it a try with a knife finished like a razor ( I doubt the edge quality will be the same due to geometry and how heavy knives are compared) Not so with hair, the edge grabs on the scales that cover tha hair and that is where the hair is cut.