Thread: Hanging hair

I am happy to say I have been able to get two of my five razors to pass the hanging hair test. They also happen to be my two favorites. The other three are close but no cigar. However I do believe shaving with them is the ultimate test. :twisted:

When trying the hanging hair test DO NOT do it in the bathroom in front of the mirror. Your natural tendency (well, mine anyway) is to look into the mirror and perform the test instead of looking directly at the hanging hair resulting in you now looking at the inside of your freshly opened thumb.

Yeah, I did it. Not proud of it but man enough to admit I did it.

Tony

I am happy to say I have been able to get two of my five razors to pass the hanging hair test. They also happen to be my two favorites. The other three are close but no cigar. However I do believe shaving with them is the ultimate test. :twisted:

Hi all! I haven't got it yet. But I'm learnin' ! D :shock:

I still just use the shave for testing, but Bill Leppler was over last weekend and he really could tell the sharpness by the thumbnail test. We also were using my new microscope which was a gas. Unreal to see the edges that up close and personal. You can easily see a wire edge, or little micro chips or rougher striations......Love it.

Lynn- what is your new scope??? :?:

I've never passed the hanging hair test, because I've never had a hair on my head to test. lol... I use the hair on my left forearm for preliminary testing, but in the end rely on the shave test.

Hal

Here's an interesting little factoid I've been meaning to get around to researching. I took one boar's bristle from an old shave brush, one badger hair from another old brush, one of *my* arm hairs, one of my scalp hairs, and one of my whiskers near the chin (ouch!). I taped them in a row on a piece of white paper and looked at them with the 60X microscope I have for sale on the Yahoo! site: http://tinyurl.com/7rmb5 That scope has a reticule in the objective lens with gradations in 1/1000ths of an inch (.001") allowing me to measure the with of each sample with accuracy. The results:

.0020" scalp hair
.0028" arm hair
.0037" whisker
.0070" boar's bristle
.0085" badger hair

My point in this exercise is to point out that arm hair is not the same as whiskers in thickness. I typically substitute badger hair for the hanging hair test. Even though it is thicker than boar's bristle, it is more pliable and closer to a whisker in detail than the other three.

And, no .... I will *not* test hairs from other parts of my anatomy, thank you very much, LOL

Could somebody explain the hanging hair test in detail. It's not just cuting an arm hair, right? How do you hang the hair?

Hanging hair test is finding a hair in your wifes hair brush and holding it gingerly in one hand while carefully pushing the edge of a razor through the hair approximately 1/4" to 1/2" from your fingers. If your razor doesn't pass the hanging hair test, I end up pulling several hairs from my head and muttering under my breath...and that way I have several hairs already set to go for the next test. :roll:

Bob (string) (formerly of vicki and bob...aka moonstrings2003)