Thread: HHT failures

Speaking from my own personal experience I can understand the frustration that this topic brings with it. For those whom the HHT is routinely attained it is a non issue. For those who never or rarely get it and who aren't getting a shave that pleases them it is a big issue.

I posted a thread a year of more ago called,"Finally Did the Parlor Trick." I had honed a razor and it passed HHT nicely and it was my first time having success with it. I found that on some razors I would get it and on some I would not. Some would get it on parts of the blade some for the length.

In spite of that I followed Lynn's advice that the shave was the test and found that even if a razor wouldn't HHT if it would pop hair from my forearm without touching the skin I would get a good shave out of it. So I usually try the HHT just for kicks but if I don't get it I am too lazy to worry about it enough to go hone some more. Now if the razor brushes my forearm hair aside it is going back to the hones 'cause I know it won't shave well.

When I was an ironworker in my younger days back in the '60s guys used to say,"If it was easy our wives would be doing it." In the '70s they had to quit saying that because our wives were doing it...... ironwork that is.

Well the HHT ain't easy .... at least for some of us and if your razor won't pass HHT give it a shave test and see if it passes that. If you want it to pass HHT and it won't get over to the hones and go to work. If it was easy our wives would be doing it.

I was talking to one of my hairs from my head and it is in awe that so much conversation has been generated about it. I had another conversation with a whisker and it was not excited at all..........go figure.

Who will have the last word here? Who will support who's view? Who will end up being the supreme God of shaving knowledge and the unrelenting hanging hair? Where will the God's siite be housed? Who will tranfer his word to parchment? Is the HHT a need to know item for you or do you just think it is? Who can write the longest post about it? Who can pontificate the longest and have that message scientifically validated? When will the movie be coming out?

OMG this is fun!!!! I am hopeful that we will continue to see this thread out through year end. I am starting to worry that no one will ever be able to hone or shave properly until this debate is settled. Ohhhhh, the agony of it all........................

I can't take it any more.

Somebody please let me know how this all turns out.

My undying gratitude.

Lynn

Jimmy,

My dad was an ironworker, and I always wondered where he got those crazy sayings from.

My personal favorites:

1. Rip the lace off your panties and .....

2. Put your purse down and ....

3. If it were easy, I'd have your wife out here doing it

Now I know where they came from


@ Lynn, I couldn't help thinking of those parodies of the Radio program narrators teasing the next week's episode... I love it! I'm not sure what the fuss is about, but I've discovered a long time ago that I couldn't care less how a hanging hair reacts to my edge because the shave is all that matters (for me). If it's valuable/important to any of you guys, that's great and I support your use of it wholeheartedly.

Cheers,

Paul

Originally Posted by gssixgun

When somebody like you does that, then too many people think that if their razor doesn't pass their HHT then their razor is not shave ready for them, and that just is not true...

Glen, that is all true. I don't see where we differ that much about it.

I have no problem with people not seeing the virtues of doing the hanging hair test. I also don't have a problem with people that have tried it, couldn't do it, and decided they didn't need it, because the shaves were good anyway.

But I'm going to take a firm stance on this one:
an edge coming off a fine finisher, whether that is a Shapton 16K, Shapton 30K, Coticule, Escher, Nakayama, CrO strop, diamond pastes, sub-micron lapping film, etcetera, will always be keener if it passes some form of severing a loose hair. There is no doubt in my mind about that. And I believe most people with experience in such a test (HHT or above-skin-level test, I don't care) think the same. Why would we otherwise be aiming for it?
So bottom line. Let's cut all cräp here: If probed with the same hair, an edge that does not sever that hair will be less sharp then an edge that does sever that hair.
(That does not mean that the guy who honed such an edge actually makes use of such test)

Indeed, I am throwing the club in the chicken coop with that statement (as we say back home in my native language). We recently had a great discussion thread, here on SRP, about the question whether a sharper razor will always hold a better shave or not. I remember being in the "a razor can be too sharp camp". So one can hardly accuse me of sharpness machismo. But I do use the HHT for probing if a razor I'm honing meets my sharpness standard. If that intimidates people to the point where they need to convince themselves that the HHT is just a parlor trick performed for bragging purposes, or find some twisted reason why knowledge how to put the test to good use, should better be censored away, well... I'm just not here to go along with that.

Excuse me for that. In the end, everyone reading these discussions will read the arguments contributed and make up his own mind. We all shave beards around these perimeters. Shouldn't that mean that we are capable of forming educated opinions?

There. Now. I said it all.

Bart.

Bart,
It seems like you have something else growing besides your beard...Smile..., but I think your point is well taken.
I learned a long time ago, when I got involved in a similar thread, from Lynn that the ultimate test was the shave test.

That being said though, I too found that I personally needed a reference point to somehow indicate that my honing MIGHT be done. So I used the HHT as a starting point, the development of which was under my control and my control only. I made my own paramaters, my own test material, set my own required feedback both visual and tactile and drew my own conclusions.

This test has always, 100% of the time, indicated to me that it was time to try the shave test. If it didn't pass my HHT, the shave test never passed for me. Did the shave test pass every time the HHT did? Heck no, but when it didn't, it was always easily corrected.

Last night, after you wrote about the hair direction, I took a C-Mon I had just honed and tried the HHT. It passed so I turned the hair around to see what would happen. Well, it passed too. Go figure.

At any rate, I use MY test on every razor I hone and if it doesn't pass that test, it doesn't get shaved with. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Enjoy!

Ray

Actually Bart you missed my point completely but at this juncture it has become way to confusing so I now have to bow out so I don't make it even worse then it is now which has you saying that a edge that does HHT is sharper... Great for new honers .... winning an internet argument sometimes has to come secondary to confusing the crap out of new people...

I think this whole thing has gotten convoluted.

Again, not trying to say that people that use the HHT are wrong, or that it doesn't work for them.

All I'm trying to say is that people that CAN'T make a razor pass the HHT (especially NEW people) might say/think "This razor isn't sharp, and won't give a good shave" based on that "test" alone, and that is NOT TRUE.

The only thing I've been trying to do here, is to say that regardless if you can get the HHT to work or not, it doesn't mean that edge won't give you a great shave.

I have a razor that was sharpened by a honemeister, and it would not pass the HHT (no I didnt strop it, just rinsed it and tried it.) It gave a decent shave.

Probably a month or so later, I picked up a razor off ebay (not shave ready) and honed it. Once again, HHT failed. But this razor gave a better shave than the one from the honemeister.

I don't mess with the HHT. Once my razor passes the TPT, I test it by shaving arm hair, strop, test it again, and if it shaves smoothly, then I'll shave with it on my face.

Never had a single one of my 10 razors pass the HHT, but they all shave amazingly.

This is my point, if you want to use the HHT as a marker, GO FOR IT, GOOD FOR YOU, but new people especially shouldn't get all bent out of shape because they can't get their razor to pass the HHT, and make a billion posts on the forum saying "oh no, my razor isn't sharp, it won't pass the HHT!!! HELP!!!!!"

They're placing too much emphasis on it, and should just SHAVE with it! If it shaves well, then don't freak out! If it shaves poorly, maybe it's your technique, prep, etc, not the razor. Chances are you may never get a razor to pass the HHT, but it certainly doesn't mean you won't be getting an amazing shave.

HHT can be helpful but it's not necessary

I think we are all on the same page

Why not use Boar hair for the hht?It is almost the same thickness as a whisker.Would that not be a more accurate predictor of how a blade will slice through your beard?

I agree if your razor easily shaves arm hair the tpt is good give it ago. In most cases a razor will shave arm hair but not shave stubble as easy but at least you no your very near if not all the way there. The hht i only try if i pas the the first two test including tnt if i;m setting bevel.