Thread: Ok, I don't get it... am I "that guy" afterall.

Ok, riddle me this shave guru's. I bought a shave ready straight off the forum here to see what a shave ready straight looks and behaves like. It passed all the tests. HHT, TNT etc. The shave was sort of rough. Not smooth.
Ok, I'm a noob and that's what you expect.

I posted some pics a while back of a C-Mon I restored. However I bent a pin and decided to send it out to be honed and re-pinned.

Enter RupRazor. I sent it to him, he suggested he would give it a buffing if I wanted or would leave it for the work I've done. I chose, of course, to have it buffed.

I got it back and the buffing he gave it and the job with the pins, well, it's like looking at a brand new razor. Seriously it looks like it must have all those years ago.

So I started to see what the edge was like. First the HHT, it didn't cut a single hair. I tried the hairs on my arms. Meh, it sort of cut them.
I wondered what the deal was. I know his reputation for honing. I watched him on youtube and he certainly looks like he knows what he's doing.

Convinced this suffered some sort of edge blunting during transit and I was going to be sending it back I did remember the final test is the shave.

So I loaded up my badger with Tabac and put blade to face.

Like butter. I mean it cut through my tough beard like a light saber. I mean the parts of the shave that weren't smooth I know were my inexperience and not the blade. I mean this blade what won't slice a hair anywhere else it seems, cut through my whiskers like they weren't even there.

So this noob is even more confused than before about putting a good edge on a blade and how to test it out.

I don't want to be "that guy", but after this I'm afraid I am.

Good on you that you did the shave test before jumping to conclusions based on the other tests. A razor doesn't have to be capable of passing HHT in order to shave superlatively. Some of mine will and some won't but the shave is the true test.

Originally Posted by joscobo

So this noob is even more confused than before about putting a good edge on a blade and how to test it out.

I don't want to be "that guy", but after this I'm afraid I am.

why is it confusing? you hone a razor until it shaves well and then you stop

Originally Posted by gugi

why is it confusing? you hone a razor until it shaves well and then you stop

It's confusing to me because it doesn't pass any of the tests, yet it shaves like a dream. I have a blade that passed the tests but it felt very rough when I shaved with it.

There are still and always be, some mysteries with regards to honing...i hope it stays that way.
Ive had similar experiences, in my honing process...Lynn always says that shaving is the only true test of a fine edge and he has honed every razor, with every stone available.

Mac

Originally Posted by McWolf1969

There are still and always be, some mysteries with regards to honing...i hope it stays that way.
Ive had similar experiences, in my honing process...Lynn always says that shaving is the only true test of a fine edge and he has honed every razor, with every stone available.

Mac

It is a good thing, I think, I learned this in my infancy of straight shaving. Otherwise I might have been honing in futility trying to pass these tests, only to have a perfectly shave ready straight in my hands already.

The shave test is the only real test.


An overhoned blade, or a blade with microchipping even will pass the HHT.

It is a fun test, but in the end all that matters is the shave.

When honing I will use the TPT*


*Disclaimer: I am still a honing noob. I will consider myself a noob until i manage to hone well into the triple digits.

Just in general defense of the HHT test, even though I strongly agree with everyone here that the HHT is not a concern.

The HHT is an after stropping test, traditionally. So I would suggest that if you want to pass the HHT, for whatever reason, that you work to improve your stropping.

I find that most razors will cut arm hair pretty easily. I think when you pull hair from your head your simply using hair that is way too far removed from the courseness of your beard. Arm or chest hair is even better. There are other hairs that are even better still but I'll leave it up to you to imagine where to get those.

I think razors can be honed so the are rough and sharp. You wouldn't want to shave with them though. I remember when I learned how to hone sharpness came after about a year, but getting a perfectly smooth bevel was a few more years of practice. That was the hard part, not the sharpness.

As far as I'm concerned all these "tests" are just things that have been concocted to make people think they can tell if a razor is shave ready. Often times they mean nothing or are one sided in that if they don't pass the razor won't shave and if they do pass the razor still may not shave.

In any case as has been said shaving is the only true test.

Originally Posted by joscobo

It's confusing to me because it doesn't pass any of the tests, yet it shaves like a dream. I have a blade that passed the tests but it felt very rough when I shaved with it.

i think the problem is not passing tests, but performing them correctly.
it's not pass/fail, it's a gradation, sometimes subtle.
it's not magic, just some attention to detail and experience.