Thread: HHT calibration?

What is easier to cut thick hair or thin hair? I figure thin because there is less material for the blade to cut through and that makes sense to me but sometimes the world of straight razor shaving is opposite from what you would think. I know that the HHT doesn't mean anything some times and some people loathe it while others swear by it. I know that when I first got my razor from classicedge.ca it didn't pass the HHT but the shave was great. I have since touched up my razor on CrOx and tested it and decided why not do an HHT and see what happens. Sometimes it passes, sometimes it doesn't. I have thick hair and my wife has thin hair and sometimes my razor will pass using my hair and some times it will pass my wife's but some times it will only do one or the other which I really don't understand. I would think that if thick hair is harder to cut and my razor passes the HHT with my hair then shouldn't it pass using my wife's thin hair as well? Also, if it cuts the hair and makes a noise is it less sharp than when it doesn't make a noise and just falls away silently. I have a bellied hollow so it's real thin and sings when I shave so I figured that it will always make noise during the HHT. I have never had it pass the HHT silently as I am sure a wedge would, I don't even know if it is possible for a really hollow blade to pass the HHT silently. What do you guys think.

And with that one post you have just discovered the inherent inaccuracies of the HHT...

If you can get it to work 99% of the time as a Go-NoGo guage for any single stage in your honing then you are doing pretty good, anything more then that consider yourself extremely lucky..

Myself I quit using it as test at all some time ago, I do use it as a parlor trick to impress those without a clue as to how sharp a Straight Razor actually is I love watching them go like it is impressive..

I wish I still had my stash of unicorn hair.That stuff was truely calibrated for the perfect edge,sold it all to Lynn

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

I wish I still had my stash of unicorn hair.That stuff was truely calibrated for the perfect edge,sold it all to Lynn

It was the magic rubbed off from the Unicorn hair that made the blade superior.

Originally Posted by 32t

It was the magic rubbed off from the Unicorn hair that made the blade superior.

No.Is what made Lynn what he is today.He has a perfectally calibrated way of testing for the perfect edge

Yeah Glen, I knew you were going to comment on this one haha. Originally I was planning on writing about the circumstances from when I have done the test and failed or passed the test. Just yesterday, I was playing around and got one of my hairs and was holding it to where it was curving like a frown and the razor cut right through, but then I rolled the hair to where it was curving like a smile and I don't know why but the hair wouldn't catch on the blade. I guess the direction that the hair is curving makes a difference and maybe that's why longer hair (usually donated from our longer haired counterparts because they are seemingly more plentiful and can be found anywhere around the house) is usually cut easier because the weight of it makes it curve downward and thus can be caught easier on the blade. So then, how can a "test" with so many variables even be considered a test. I mean I even bought a vintage razor and I didn't even do anything to it and half the blades bevel is all weird and wonky yet it will pass a HHT but the initial test shave was quite bloody. I don't really know why I even thought I should do a test shave without doing anything to it the seller didn't even claim for it to be shave ready. Sorry this is a little long winded, I guess its really just a rant about the HHT. I hope this helps somebody realize that the HHT is not all its cracked up to be. I know when I started out last November I thought the HHT was the coolest thing in the world but now I have learned.

Originally Posted by cosperryan

What is easier to cut thick hair or thin hair?

Really thick hair requires a really sharp edge but really thin hair requires a really sharp edge .

Originally Posted by cosperryan

I hope this helps somebody realize that the HHT is not all its cracked up to be.

Some of us bald guys knew it all a long.

Do you always hold the hair at the scalp end, I am not sure if hair has a grain, but I would imagine it is smoother in one direction than the other. I would also imagine that thicker hair should be easier to cut in the test as it has more body and won't bend so easily.
However I have never done the test, and probably won't.

The trick to calibrating this test empirically is, of course, adequate repetition. Not only overall repetition, but repetition at the various levels of the factors of importance, and their interactions with each other.

So say, for the sake of a simple example, you have 5 variables: hair type (let's just say coarse and fine), razor type (carbon, stainless), razor size (<5/8, 5,6,7,8/8), grind (hollow, quarter, wedge), finishing stone (<12K, 12-15K, >15K).

In total, there are 2*2*5*3*3 = 180 combinations of these variables. If you take a conservative guess that each combination requires 5 HHT assessments (repetitions) to get an adequate calibration, you are looking at 900 independent HHTs minimum.

Of course, this is a highly stylized example and you may well gain some efficiencies by treating parts of the process as non-independent, but the point remains: there's no substitute for experience, and there's no shortcut to gaining that experience.

James.

An edge that is very ragged and jagged under a loupe, will do great on the HHT but it will be absolutely painful to shave with. Most honers use a loupe and a shave test, whether on their face or other body parts to assess the edge. But the loupe will really help you to see whether you need to spend more time finishing or smoothing an edge. Until you get much better at it (and that includes me), the only way to really tell is to shave one of your cheeks, and I don't mean your butt cheeks... (with soap!!).