Thread: The HHT test

Doh! :

Josh

mparker, the test as it is performed today never tests beard hair since we don't let it grow long enough, so what is your point? The idea is to develop a more reproducible, consistent and high-confidence test!

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

mparker, the test as it is performed today never tests beard hair since we don't let it grow long enough, so what is your point? The idea is to develop a more reproducible, consistent and high-confidence test!

Finding a material other than my inconsistent head hair would be nice! If I recall correctly fly fishing leader material come in various weights so a guy could use what is appropriate for his beard.

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

mparker, the test as it is performed today never tests beard hair since we don't let it grow long enough, so what is your point? The idea is to develop a more reproducible, consistent and high-confidence test!

This is a great idea if it's useful, but I'm skeptical.

The relevance of the HHT is dependent on two semi-independent variables, the quality of individual head hair (or arm hair), and the quality of the beard hair. Reducing the variability in the hair test doesn't help much, since each individual still has to calibrate this standard test against the shave results on his own beard. But this is the same difficulty as calibrating his own head hair (or arm hair) against his own beard.

This standard HHT is also potentially less useful, since the minute variations in our own hair can be used to provide more fine-grained results. In my case I use the hair on my arm, and I can get a good gauge of how sharp the blade is by how far up my arm the blade will pop hair. But there aren't enough grades of fishing line in the range we need to provide that level of feedback. The fishing line provides a high confidence pass/fail test, but a test of what? Whether the blade can cut fishing line, which is great if our beards were all identical and that fishing line corresponded to a great shave of that beard. But that's a lot of "if's", and several of them are demonstrably false.

I don't want to be a nay-sayer here, and I think a standardised test is probably a good thing but...

I'm putting my statisticians hat on. Any scientifically derived standardised test requires a lot of experimentation, repetition, and control. In the current circumstance, I'd think you'd have to control for leader material (are there variations between batches, within the same manufacturer?); razor make, steel type; razor angle; method of placing leader on razor edge; hone type, manufacturer, material, grit (and batches thereof); air temperature, humidity. Then, if you want to develop the standard test off a stropped or pasted-stropped razor, you've got make of strop, material, thickness, number and quality of stroppings, hanging or paddle etc. Plus operator variations. And all possible interactions of these things. (plus anything else I've forgotten or overlooked).

Each of these needs to be an experimental condition with replication.

I mean, I know this is overkill, and I know no-one is suggesting this should hold up to rigorous scientific scrutiny and get published in a journal or whatever, but without this kind of rigour all you've got is an ad-hoc test, which is basically what we've already got with the HHT as it stands right now.

James.

I'm with Jimbo on this one. I think you ultimately get back to the question? "So does it shave well or what?"



Justin

Precisely jaegerhund, that's what testing is all about, namely, to develop a test which predicts real world performance. Use whatever razor you wish made from whatever steel and honed and stropped in whatever way the user prefers and correlate it with actual shaving quality. With all the variables that exist outside of the filament, the results become meaningless when the filament used is plagued with the wild variations that presently exist. Monofilament is a very consistant product with pound test and filament diameter controlled within very tight tolerances. So at last we would have a standard filament and we could test razors with all kinds of histories, see if they would shave this filament and then see if a positive test result correlates to a good shave! And if enough people try it and see a strong correlation then we have a standard filament to test with.

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

Precisely jaegerhund, that's what testing is all about, namely, to develop a test which predicts real world performance. Use whatever razor you wish made from whatever steel and honed and stropped in whatever way the user prefers and correlate it with actual shaving quality. With all the variables that exist outside of the filament, the results become meaningless when the filament used is plagued with the wild variations that presently exist. Monofilament is a very consistant product with pound test and filament diameter controlled within very tight tolerances. So at last we would have a standard filament and we could test razors with all kinds of histories, see if they would shave this filament and then see if a positive test result correlates to a good shave! And if enough people try it and see a strong correlation then we have a standard filament to test with.

Sounds good to me -- I'll be waiting for the results. So, I guess in a testing like this you would eventually have to settle on some "composite" face/skin/beard to do the testing or would you break it down into subgroups. I guess my honest question is how to bridge the gap between empirical/reproducible steps and the ultimate subjective nature (or is it subjective) of a good shave. I think the major razor companies (cartridge razors) have spent 100s of millions of dollars on research and still end up with razors that don't preform well -especially for everyone. Just playing the devil's advocate here ---.

Justin

The points you guys are making about the usefulness of this test are valid. New shavers will still have to learn what a sharp edge feels to shave with, and how sharp an edge has to be for their particular beard.

So this fishing line idea doesn't solve the whole problem, but it's still extremely useful, I think. My hair works great for the HHT, but I have some hairs that are really thick and others that are really thin. Sometimes an edge will pass on one hair and not on another.

Remember, the hardest thing for new honers to learn is when to stop honing. I just picture the poor guy with wispy blond hair who's honing his fingers off, creating an edge and then overhoning it because it won't cut his silky locks...

This would give him a point where he could say, OK, it's cutting this fishing line, so let's shave test.

We'll never eliminate the learning curve, but a more standardized test would shorten it for a lot of guys.

Just my two cents,
Josh

Yep -- you always need the other side to keep everyone in check --but some more refined standard would be nice. What I don't understand is that I think I've read posts where people claim to have razors that will not pass the HHT on any hair but still get good shaves ---am I right here?

Justin