Damn', seems like I missed most of the fun...

For me the HHT is a tool. I would never declare a blade shaveready, based on the HHT. Neither would I do so based on the TPT or the SAT (shave arm hair test). Shavereadiness can only be based on a shave, and THAT might be a personal observation, variable to skin- and beard type and personal shaving style. I am sure there are people happily shaving with razors that I would put aside as not sharp enough. (that doesn't turn those people into worse honers, but it might expose me as a worse shaver). There once was a thread started by a new member that had been shaving for half his life with a straight razor. He honed once a year and had never used a strop. And yet he was an avid and happy shaver, till he found SRP and (for a short moment) lost his self-confidence. I believe he ended up buying a strop, but I don't recall if he found it beneficial...

That said,
After I washed my youngest daughters hair, I took a pair of scissors and cut off about 2,5" of a strand of her hair. (She has long, pretty stiff hair, and she gladly contributed to the improvement of my honing results). I stored the dry, clean hair in a small box, that I keep in my hones drawer. There's enough for many years of honing. I find this important, for the sake of calibrating the test. Whenever I do a HHT, I wet my thumb and index finger, and run a hair through my pinched fingers. That hydrates the hair, and it surely influences the results. I have two uses for the HHT.

My main use is to check if a razor has a keen bevel at an early honing stage (DMT 1200 or Coticule with slurry). For some honing progressions, I find it important to aim for maximum keenness at this level. With a progression on fast synthetic hones, you might be able to make up for neglected keenness, but if using slow natural polishers, you might not. The first thing I notice at a bevel-correction stage, is that a razor starts to pass the SAT, but only later on, after a number of additional, ultra light passes, it'll start to pass a crude version of the HHT. Crude means that I have to drag the hair accross the razor a bit, before it pops. Prior to that, I can also hear the edge sing, as it is voiced like a violin string by the microscopical indentations in the hair shaft. If the hair passes, I know I 'm ready to move to the next hone.

My second use of the HHT, is when I finalize the edge. I usually get a popping HHT, without fumbling, off the finishing hone. Then I strop the blade on leather, for about 60 laps. I expect a distinct improovement, typically a more silent and swift HHT, after that. I believe this is caused by the formation of a fin or a micro-bur or whatever you might call it. If normal stropping doesn't provide me with a good fin, I file out a CrO pasted loom strop and do 10 laps, test again, repeat if necessary. If that doesn't give me the HHT-improvement I'm after, I will still test-shave, and almost certainly will find the blade shaveready, but just not a holy-grailish as I wished for. Rarily I go back immediately to the hones, cause I have found too many times before, that redoing the whole same exercise always yields the same results. I'll make a note in the razor's log and try a different approach on the next honing job. Maybe finish on a Nakayama instead of on a Coticule, maybe use a natural only progression, or a synthetics only, or some hybrid variation. Sometimes a microbevel.
I second ChisL's experiences. If my honing methods give me a completely silent HHT, with the hair simply falling down, without any tendency to jump away, I know the shave will not disappoint me.

Bart.