Thread: What about a honing contest?

Christian,

rest assure, you are not alone with criticizing this contest/survey idea.
I'm not one to take such things personal, and your thoughts, as well as those of mr. Bigspendur, who also shared his disapproval, are approached with honest consideration.

However, I think we fundamentally disagree on the nature of the concept "shaveability". I, for one, think that "shaveability" is a fairly objective notion. I draw such conclusion, based upon razors I have swapped and shared with others, for comparison and assessment. I also base my ideas on a long chat with a retired barber that shaved 1000's of beards between 1940 and the mid 1960's. For that purpose the clients personal straight razors were kept and maintained at the barbershop, all with the same means and with the same concept about a blade being up to par or not.
In my opinion, an superior straight razor's edge shaves close. Sharpness of a blade is, again in my opinion, directly correlated to the closeness of the shave, and I can generally form myself an idea of sharpness if I pay attention to how close the first pass WTG cuts the whiskers. Going ATG tells me more, because a good edge shaves completely smooth, while a lesses edge leaves stubble, no matter what. I think that relation between sharpness and closeness is the same on all faces, and I also think the variance is much lesser than what is often suggested.
As a second criterion, a superior straight razor's edge also lasts a fair number of shaves. The way we plan to assess the razors with multiple shaves by 4 jury members, will put some weight on that as well.
Hence, while you seem convinced that the shaving performance of an edge (remember that everybody will be using the same type and brand of razor) is a very subjective notion, I am convinced of almost the opposite.

I also think that we will find experienced jury members, so that stropping malpractice is not an issue. It's a typical newbie occurrence, and I don't think experienced shavers dull their blades on a strop, ever.

I would like to emphasize, once again, the idea is hone a razor and find out how 4 experienced shavers rate its performance. For kicks, the best blade wins a price. It's not about the best honer, but about the blade that receives the best appraisal during a blind assessment.

The ones that try to organize this thing have no choice but to take this seriously, for the sake of being as objective as reasonably possible, and because a participation fee needs to be involved, to pay for the razor and the postage costs. (current price for the DA's is $9.50)
But those who think about participating should really not take things too seriously. Just a game, a nice prize pot, and a way to have a razor assessed by some fine gentlemen. Surely not something to have your ego bruised about.

Bart.

In my opinion, an superior straight razor's edge shaves close. Sharpness of a blade is, again in my opinion, directly correlated to the closeness of the shave, and I can generally form myself an idea of sharpness if I pay attention to how close the first pass WTG cuts the whiskers. Going ATG tells me more, because a good edge shaves completely smooth, while a lesses edge leaves stubble, no matter what. I think that relation between sharpness and closeness is the same on all faces, and I also think the variance is much lesser than what is often suggested.

Firstly, I placed my post in the the actual poll thread to explain my rather extreme view, not to further any discussion but I'm fine with the mods having moved it here.

As for your view on sharpness/smoothness and the way you evaluate it proves the point I was trying to make. Sharper edges do not a smoother or closer shave make...for everyone. If that were true then the only DE blade sold would be the Feather DE blades as they are generally considered one of the sharpest, if not THE sharpest DE blade normally available. There is a group of shavers who find this to be true, but there are many many more shavers who find that slightly LESS sharp DE blades produce a better, closer shave for them and I am one of them. Ditto for the Feather AC blades, the Pro blades are without question sharper than the Pro Super blades but my results with the Pro Supers are superior to that of the Pro blades. This is not a "I am right, you are wrong" issue, just that my view is that such a contest, as proposed, is a pointless exercise the way it is evaluated. If you gents want to have at it, by all means.... fill yer boots! I was just pointing out that whatever results become of it are meaningless for anything other than, shall we say, entertainment value, and in no way should be used to determine the suitability of one honer over the next, unless the person deciding was the first blind tester to test the contest razors, and those results would only be for his/her personal use.

Your faith in your fellow shavers unwavering skill with a strop is larger than mine.... a bad stroke on the strop can happen to anyone at any time, well it does on occasion to me and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Regards

Christian

How about entry fees to just cover costs. winner gets their name on the perpetual trophy and gets to hold it for a year. Or no physical trophy at all and instead a line under their avatar "2009 Honing Champion"?

Originally Posted by Quick

How about entry fees to just cover costs. winner gets their name on the perpetual trophy and gets to hold it for a year. Or no physical trophy at all and instead a line under their avatar "2009 Honing Champion"?

Smashing idea!

The reason I wasn't crazy about the idea centers on the following concepts. What is the ultimate goal of the contest. I realize its fun and games and all that however in the end what will the moral of the story be. Will we be able to say Mr A is a great honer and Mr B is a not so great a honer? Will Mr A have a swelled head because he did such a great job and Mr C hangs his head in shame. I think not since we don't know what equipment each guy has at his disposal, the time spend honing and the state of each razor and if your going to be using different brands the difference in quality twixt the two razors.

Its kind of like if I only have a blue belgian and someone else has every stone in existence and my razor doesn't quite measure up to the other but comes pretty close what could you conclude? I need more practice or maybe its a miracle I did what I could with what I have as opposed to the other guy who had it much easier.

However, you all have my best wishes on this and I hope you have a great time.

Okay, I'm still new to it all so put down I support it but wouldn't feel free judging since I've only shaved with two razors thus far.

I do think it would be a very difficult test to do and would take in my estimation a couple of months depending on number of contestants and number of testers. best idea I've got on it is this

number of 7 day sets equal to number of testers to be used. (and of course if more than 7 participants in honing more 7 day sets).

each honemeister hones one day of each set. for this argument lets say 7 hone guys and 4 testers. each honemeister would end up honing 4 razors out of a matched set, i.e. honemesiter 1 hones mondays. afterwards the person "in charge" get all razors together and sends out all 4 7 day sets, each to a different tester (one with lots of experience and whos shaved with many razors of course).

after a week results are sent back to "in charge" guy. the tester's would each know at the end of the week which shave they thought was best.

I don't think that having them hone with the same equipment is the important thing, after all the specific tools you use goes to your style/technique. I think the control element is the steel, blade shape, size etc. adn then of course the person shaving and their hair growth etc. (that's why I'd stipulate something like first shave must happen 24 hours after their last straight razor shave and must have 24 hours between each days shave) something like that.

oh, and stipulate that the razors be stropped on the same strop same number of strokes.

Red

I am willing to enter the contest, but I would suggest that the losers (not top 3) would get some feedback on why their razors didnt' win, what didn't feel right, and what needs work. That way not only do I have fun, but I learn something, too!

Won't be as much fun if I enter and all I get back is, "nope, you didn't win" because that really doesn't help me improve, either.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The reason I wasn't crazy about the idea centers on the following concepts. What is the ultimate goal of the contest.

The title! A sense of accomplishment, the celebration party, bragging rights on SRP, the afterglow of the win, becomming a hero in the eyes of your family and friends, ...

I can't think of any human competition where there isn't some luck factor. Conditions, equipment, whatever. It's just that the more skilled have a better probability of winning. Many competitions are also decided by a subjective measure. Films, dog shows, art in general. Many enjoy competing with no chance of winning. I'm sure there are skilled honers who are lurkers here so there's the chance of a dark horse win.

The only downside/ugliness I can think of would be cheating and I can't think of any incentive for doing so or any probability of that occuring with this group (not sure how one could cheat anyway).

I was looking at this as more of a combined and organized assessment of your personal honing skills, than a clear cut winner -vs- loser contest....
As I stated before this sort of thing has been going on behind the scenes for as long as I have been on here.... The only difference here is that said aspiring "honemiester" (a term that gets used way to easily) gets more than just one opinion on their skills, and their skills are compared to others that are closer to their level of skill, instead of just against one person's skills (normally a very experienced "honemiester") this I think is a great idea...
Also keep in mind that there will probably be NO clear cut winner, since razors can only get so sharp, and so smooth, and I am pretty sure that a majority of the people entering razors, will be able to achieve this level....
The difference here, to make what I was saying very clear...
Member X thinks that he is getting pretty good, so he asks an experienced Honemiester to access his edges and sends the razor to him....
That Honemiester has only one edge really to compare this razor too, ie: his own...
In this "contest" Member X's razor will be compared to say 19 other razors all honed by people that are way more evenly matched when it comes to experience level, and the "honemiester" is comparing all 20 razors as a group, and not just against his own abilities....

Did all this rambling make any sense whatsoever????

Originally Posted by gssixgun

That Honemiester has only one edge really to compare this razor too, ie: his own...
In this "contest" Member X's razor will be compared to say 19 other razors all honed by people that are way more evenly matched when it comes to experience level, and the "honemiester" is comparing all 20 razors as a group, and not just against his own abilities....

Did all this rambling make any sense whatsoever????

Well, yes, there's that too.

If people are worried about the agony of defeat aspect you could have a check box for each contestent to specify if they want their name/screen name to be kept private. Then in the above context you could get back your placing in the competition and no one would know that you even entered.