Thread: Getting neurotic about honing and HHT

+1 on rayman and Glen- the HHT is not THAT concrete, you have to establish benchmarks.

My hair is really good at predicting shave readiness- dry. If my hair is wet and shampoo'd and conditioned, a butter knife will cut it. Dry- I've gotten blades back from honemeisters that felt like butter on my face they were so nice and they couldn't cut some of my hairs. It's a mystery to me EXACTLY why, but I guess its a testament to good shave prep lol!

After some successes and failures, I am now getting consistently good-shaving edges. I believe my learning curve was definitely improved by the feedback I received from the Radio Shack 60x to 100x microscope. Possibly, it might help you as well.

When I was initially learning, I would take a few passes on a hone, for example, and continually check the change it made in the edge and bevel. The effect from polishing with the finer grits became clearer to me too. Occasionally, I would stumble onto a good edge. And, because I had been using the microscope, I generally knew what had produced the good edge at every step of the way.

After awhile, the haphazard production of good edges became somewhat more systematized. And, I think the microscope definitely saved me learning time.