Thread: The Perpetual Experiment

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Well, we've been down this road before. Razors are not identical and honing them until they are equally sharp is very relative. I did this years ago with the stropping experiment.

If you're right, the results will be indiscernible and the tests will reveal that the natural variations between edges are far greater than the differences caused by the experiment.
That is what they call "insignificance" in science. That in itself would be very interesting to find out.

I know I am not welcomed to reply this thread but I will go head and let say what I think.
As most of you know experiment isn’t easy to do. The reasons are bias etc. The best experiment should be done by double blind studies and come on Someone should know what is going on right?
Now in this Experiment if person wants to rich result without bias’s then all 3 razor’s sharpened with first person shouldn’t be honed again. Except stropping. In this case experiment (which is 3 hones) and subjects -people who uses the straight’s can tell their opinion about the razor’s. which one shaves better or worse ,smooth, sharpest etc.

Experiment should done this way.
Someone hones and sends the razor 2 person put’s number ‘s on the blade. 1,2,3 .
1 sharpened by Norton
2 sharpened by coticule
3 shapened by nakayama these are examples.
Now 2 nd person gets all above information. 2 nd person doesn’t shave with any of them (to avoid bias) and sends razor’s to next person who is in the line (THIS PERSON SHAVES). And so on.
Tricks are in here every shaver lets know their opinions to the 2 person. After all this second person gives all information to the first Person.
When 1 st person( in early process) sends information about the blades to 2 nd person he lies. Not says truth. This is important and will make study double blind. In this case second person has no idea which hone used on which blade. again to avoid bias
At the end 1 st person gets results and says what happens how many people used and which blade they liked.
This will help how to figure it out competition among hones.
The only reason I put this information to help. If you don’t like just let me know or any MOD’s could delete it entirely.GL

What about reviving this awesome contest?

http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...g-contest.html

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

I know I am not welcomed to reply this thread but I will go head and let say what I think.

You are more than welcome to post in my threads, Sham.
Your opinion is even valued, more than you might think.

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

As most of you know experiment isn’t easy to do. The reasons are bias etc. The best experiment should be done by double blind studies and come on Someone should know what is going on right?
Now in this Experiment if person wants to reach result without bias’s then all 3 razor’s sharpened with first person shouldn’t be honed again. Except stropping. In this case experiment (which is 3 hones) and subjects -people who uses the straight’s can tell their opinion about the razor’s. which one shaves better or worse ,smooth, sharpest etc.

That is true, if you wanted more than one person trying the same experimental setup. But that's not my intention. I would never ask a person to try 3 razors I honed and then send them to the next one on his own expenses. (And I'm not going to pay for all the shipments either). Hence my basic idea: everyone gets to hone, everyone gets one persons opinion about his honing, everyone gets to choose one experiment.
It may not yield big scientific results, but it offers at least some pointers to practices that might be worth further investigation and testing.

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

Experiment should done this way.
Someone hones and sends the razor 2 person put’s number ‘s on the blade. 1,2,3 .
1 sharpened by Norton
2 sharpened by coticule
3 shapened by nakayama these are examples.

Now 2 nd person gets all above information. 2 nd person doesn’t shave with any of them (to avoid bias) and sends razor’s to next person who is in the line. And so on.
Tricks are in here every shaver lets know their opinions to the 2 person. After all this second person gives all information to the first Person.
When 1 st person sends information about the blades to 2 nd person he lies. Not says truth. This is important and will make study double blind. In this case second person has no idea which hone used on which blade. again to avoid bias
At the end 1 st person gets results and says what happens how many people used and which blade they liked.
This will help how to figure it out competition among hones.
The only reason I put this information to help. If you don’t like just let me know or any MOD’s could delete it entirely.GL

It's correct that when multiple participants are testing the same razors, that no one should get any results before the last participant has finished his testing. But as explained above, this is not what I was thinking about. On a side note, if only one person performed the honing, the results would still be questionable. Results can be very dependable on who performed the honing, even if both honers know very well what they are doing. (personal approach can be very different, as we all know very well)

My only goal was to suggest a fun way to shave with each other's edges and see if we could actually discern between some practices that are often discussed on the forums (such as using a finishing hone dry or with water, different bevel angles with the same honing method, pasting on a hanging strop vs pasting on a solid (balsa) surface, finishing with 10 passes on a 16K or doing 30 passes, stropping a razor on clean leather before pasting it vs going straight to pastes, etc... I often wonder if there really is a consistent difference between all those options.

Best regards,
Bart.

This is a very interesting idea. Although I am not as experienced as the rest of you, I have only honed 97 razors to date, I would at least like to be in on the results. Maybe I could even be the last guy to get them, but I would like to participate in some way if possible.

Ray

Reminds me of the honing 'contest' we were having .... was it a year ago ?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Reminds me of the honing 'contest' we were having .... was it a year ago ?

Since you're already the second one that asks about it...

The SRP honing contest. After a wearisome procedure to get the actual permission to go ahead with it, I bought 30 Double Arrows. I made new scales for them (there should be pictures somewhere in the forum). Next I stared fixing the notorious shoulder issue on all DA razors. In the mean time, I wrote submission rules and tried to get the judge's comments on them to reach a definitive version. I also tried to foster the developement of a document that would allow the judges to note their findings in a standardized and consistent manner. I still was trying to find a 4th judge. I found someone prepared to take care of te US part of posting and collection of the razors during the competition. I didn't like the idea of using my personal Paypal account for entering the submission fees, so I asked about the possibilty of an SRP paypall account or some other transparent solution for the financial transactions connected to the competition. The absence of enthusiasm for this whole operation was at times deafening. Some seasoned SRP-members, in particular Glen and Bruno, were supportive but for the most part I felt like rowing a boat with some companions holding their paddle still in the water, waiting for the boat to loose momentum and quietly sink. Then I had a big confict on the forum, that has no connection to the Honing Competition, but it lead to my departure and subsequent banishment. Not expecting to ever be active on SRP again, I decided to put my energy in developing a website in support of the Belgian Hones. Belgian hones are directly, yet not exclusively, connected to traditional shaving, so I figured my 30 Double Arrows would easily find a purpose for future activities organized over there. (By the way, if I can figure out one last issue with sending e-mail from a Typolight propelled website, the plan is to launch next week)

In the mean time, I got the opportunity to return to SRP. I see a lot of new members, that have probably never heard of the Honing Contest. And there are several members that originally adhered to the idea, whom I haven't seen around on the forums anymore. The contest subforum is removed. So I figured the Honing Contest is dead. Upon request and if someone 's willing to actively row the boat with me, I am prepared to blow new life into the whole operation.

Except for the use of Double Arrows, this expreiment has little to do with the original contest idea. The contest did not promote experimentation. The contest's main idea was to present expert feedback to a participants honing efforts on one razor. The "perpetual experiment" offers one peer's review on three razors honed by the participant. It also offers the opportunity to shave with a peer's edges and compare them to one's own. That's quite different than the goals of the honing contest.

Best regards,
Bart