Thread: Paper testing razors

Originally Posted by onimaru55

No one is trying to insult you but to some of us who have been honing razors for decades, your method looks like taking 1 step forward & 2 steps back.

Sharpness is achieved at bevel set. There is no need to test a razor after the bevel set & at that point cutting paper is just as useable as any other destructive test. Beyond that you are spinning your wheels & I for one find it hard to take that seriously..

This is intended for more than just the quoted post. Mr. Onimaru55, you have an uncanny knack for calming a conversation. Guess that is why you are a moderator. You have my full respect sir. I debated a while about posting tonight, and I'm going to bed after this one. To Slurryer and several others that were here to discus a stone, I apologize that was overshadowed. I did warn it was likely to happen. To anyone else who feels that I have tried to belittle their methods, that was never my intent and I believe I have shown a significant restraint to avoid that. I have no problem with anyone's methods.
In answer to a question in an earlier post today, Yes, I do strop after testing, after the final honing, I also test after stropping, and am likely to go to the test shave without further stropping. Early in my straight razor honing, I was never able to get a satisfactory shave directly from any hone I tired, and soon found there were easier and quicker methods to that end, and stopped trying to shave from the hone. A couple of months back, honing a C-Mon Blackie, the razor was doing as expected every step of the way, sooner than I expect. When I tested, at what I thought should be the end, the razor floated thru the cut so smoothly, it convinced me it was time to try again from the stone. It was a respectable shave. The next night I did about 20 laps on a cloth strop before shaving, and it was a great shave. I have a method of stropping on cloth that reaches a point I am looking for. That point is best determined by a microscope, or I can tell with a paper cut. the microscope is in the other room, at the computer, and is a cheapy, awkward to use. The pad of paper is right there. Guess I should mention here, I have strops at my honing bench and more in the bathroom.

In agreement here, cutting paper is a destructive test. It can roll an edge, but it doesn't have to. The lone cut does not have to dull the edge enough to make it noticeably less shave worth, but can be. I started my comments very early with saying there can be potholes learning my method. Rolled edge is only one. I understand that there are many honers with decades of experience that do not test beyond the bevel, and agree that there is normally little need. There are some that have no need to test then, unless using a bevel setter that is new to them. Many of you have ways that are telling you, realizing them or not, when enough is enough.

Many here do not have that level of experience. They are looking for something to test with to help ensure them that they are moving in the right direction. I do not have decades of honing experience. I do have decades of cutting paper to test any number of edged instruments, including very fine edged chef's knives. Granted not as fine or delicate as a straight razor. When I started honing razors, I was not aware of places such as SRP. I had a method to test. It was not an easy transition into razors, but it worked, along with finding some potholes. Maybe my experience with paper cutting lead me to believe it was easy for anyone to learn. Evident that was not the case, by the number of people here who say they tried it a lot without success. But anyone's lack of success doesn't prove that something can't be done, it only proves that this person cannot do it, at this point in time. One picture of failure, does not prove it can't be done. 1,000 pictures of failure do not prove it can't be done.

There are other people here that cut paper. They rarely say so because they know the results, as I mentioned at the beginning when I brought it up. I would not expect anyone, including myself, to go to a lot of effort to learn something they have no need for, and have learned, and have been taught, doesn't work. Not my loss or yours on any count.

If anyone feels a need for the pictures, I will provide them. They will not be at several different light levels from different angles, as my scope is not that easy to maneuver, and I expect that would be a lot of pictures, as my intention was to do a shot of an edge ready to shave, a shot after 1 slice, after 3 slices, after 5 slices, after a shave, and then??? I am not going to do it unless there is some indication they will be received openly, and they will have to be done over the week-end. Regardless of pics or not, I will keep an eye on the thread to see if it returns to the original conversation, although I doubt that is going to happen.
All due respects,

I'm sure it will return to the original conversation, this was just a sidebar. And I for one would love to see your pictures.

I feel dumber for having read this thread just now. I've learned less than nothing. I've never bothered to try such paper cutting with straights. Since I have several razors to test things with, I could do that but I still have no idea how this highly defended method is done.

I have another d@mn useless phone book on my porch waiting to go in the trash but supposedly this is not good for testing. A notepad was described as being better but it was not named.

Please, if you are going to promote a method, then make it available for testing. That is, tell me exactly how you do it. What specific paper? What angle of approach to the paper? What depth of cut? What else?

I haven't read beyond a couple of pages in this thread. I just don't have the patience. If it works for you cool. Why do people insist on having the last word in a debate ? There are people that insist that HHT is NOT a reliable method to judge shave readiness. IME it is, and that is what I use as a measure.

Cutting paper. While it is true that not all hair is the same, all of my hair is the same, and I am not testing anyone else's edges. We go on and on about whether coticules, eschers, phigs, &c, are superior to synthetics ...... or not.

If you have found the hones and the tests that work for you ....... solid. Stick with them, and if you are so inclined experiment with further methods/materials. Letting folks know what you're doing and what you've found is laudable. Making it a crusade to spread the gospel of your discoveries, becoming an evangelist of cutting paper is sort of tiresome IMHO. Save a tree, razors are intended to cut hair. OTOH, whatever works for you.

I really don’t see what the problem is.

We all agree it is a destructive test, so is the TNT. Some have calibrated their TNT and use it to good effect.

I do not recommend TNT or Paper test, but if it works for you… go for it.

A lot of us do some crazy, non-conventional stuff, as I know Glenn and Lynn and many other do. It is how we push the edges of the envelope… and we all learn from it.

I've been around here for quite a few years and I've seen them come and go. Folks coming on the scene with this new method and that new method and 90% of them fade into the sunset never to be seen or heard from again. The old tried and true methods are still with us and I guess they are because they work for everybody.

Having said that, there are always people who break all the rules yet they get perfect results. That's fine for that person however for the masses it's usually something to stay away from. Sometimes some new method does catch on but that's the exception.

In many ways we're like the scientific community and this is the place for peer review to decide of something new will fly or not.

Whether it becomes mainstream or not depends on what we all think of it after evaluation.

This is something that occurs on every forum, it's the "other people are dumb and they came to their method because they heard it from someone else, and nobody has ever thought about it like we have" rule.

And that is, to me, the notion that you can just mentally engineer something that is better than a method that has come about as a result of incremental improvement over time. Usually someone who sticks in a hobby or profession long enough realizes sooner or later that the experts in a specific area tend to know more than the people who are experts in another area attempting to hammer square pegs in round holes.

It's especially prevalent in woodworking hand tools, too. I call it the "engineering" solution, and that offends engineers (I am in a related field, though, so it should offend me, too, if it offends them). That is, that engineers or notorious for getting into a hobby and before they learn why things are the way they are, they say "I could easily engineer something better than this from scratch". Exposure to the hobby brings the realization that millions of hours of incremental improvements built into something makes it fairly hard to actually just "improve" on such things off the cuff.

+1 for the before and after paper test 500x pics.

Also in public writing (or speaking), if you use an outside reference, aren't you supposed to "cite" the specifics of the reference so that all may search the validity and value of the reference. I for one would enjoy reading that study and reviewing the 5000x photos.

I'm sure my $.02 is wothless here, but I am enjoying the show.

I doubt that paper cutting will ever be a standard method of testing. As I said, I tried it at the bevel setting stage and found that it correlated well with my TNT. I may never use it again, but I'm certainly glad I gave it a brief try. Nothing ventured.

I'm finding the thread very interesting though. I think different tests work better for different people. I can't tell anything with a thumb pad test for example.

One of my two earthy fathers taught me to hone a pocket knife when I was 14 or so. He was a carpenter, had been raised on a farm, and was very knowledgeable as far as pocket knives and other tools went. I remember him taking a brand new Case XX HC folder and cutting a notch between the edge and the tang with a triangular file. That was so you could hone the edge all the way to the tang.

Then he told me, "Some people say, don't never put a file to a pocket knife, but I can get a bevel a lot quicker with a file so I do." He then would use a flat file, on that brand new knife, and set a bevel. Then came the oilstone. He would get it to where it would easily shave the hair on his leg. It was a good serviceable edge, and I've been doing them that way for 40 years +.

I've tested many an edge on a freshly honed pocket knife cutting paper. It tells me if it is smooth end to end, and if it is sharp enough for 'government work.' I've long since got my pocket knife sharp enough, but not as sharp as it could be, and called it good. So I haven't tried cutting paper with a razor, and I probably won't because it brings to mind fingernails on a chalkboard.

There have been threads suggesting that slightly dulling a Feather DE blade by running the edge through a cork a time or two, will give a better shave than just going for it without that treatment. I never tried that. Figuring it will dull soon enough if I just shave with the thing. OTOH, as my father said, many say don't touch a file to a pocket knife, yet it worked for him, and still does for me. So different strokes and all that. We'd still be living in caves, and carrying clubs, if people didn't try things ...... but back then shaving wasn't a problem either .