For Better or For Worse, a Psychological Honing Experiment

I'm going to refer to an arbitrary point in time when most people shaved (or were shaved) with straights as "Back in the Day", or BITD.

Two points:

• BITD people could not learn how to hone on the internet.
• BITD people could not do the homegrown research and trial/error methods and experiments that many of us do to get the FINEST edges possible.

I'm curious how these points affect the confidence of board member's edges. Is it as sharp as it could be? Is it sharper than it could have possibly been BITD? As a community do we feel as if we're striving to approach an older "standard" of sharpness that we imagine on an individual level, or do we feel that our honing abilities have long surpassed it?

So answer the poll above to the following question; it matters not what your experience level of honing is.

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"BITD, you go to your barber and receive an average shave from an average razor. According to what you can *imagine* to be an average level of shave-ready sharpness, do you feel your personal razor is more dull, just as sharp, or sharper than the razor in the barbershop?"

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I'm intrigued to see the results of the honers here, and also, what different sorts of things you think we can deduce from these results. What do the results mean? And what does it say about how we feel as a community about a standard level of sharpness both BITD and today?

Or, what would be a better poll question be that might give us more interesting answers to these questions?

Remember that BITD especially if you go back far enough everyone used a straight and getting it honed was as simple as some itinerant guy who traveled around or your local barber shop or your friend or relative.

Most didn't obsess about it like we do but they manged to get a satisfactory shave.

You could have just as well asked the question how did people manage before cars existed. How did they get around and take care of their horses no?

Back in the day, shaving others with a straight or honing straights might have been someone's full time job - I'd assume that person would be pretty good at it. Back in the day, there would have been a good chance (I think) that those who honed learned how to hone directly from others - I think it's easier to learn in person than over the internet. "Vintage" natruals seem, for the most part, to be better than their "new" brothers and sisters. We also talk about how, often, the old ways of doing and making things were better; why should honing be an exception?

Consider also, the size of barber hones suggests to me barbers carried them around all the time to touch up dull razors. How often do you touch up yours?

Just noticed (yup, still thinking about this question) that your two points both point towards the same bias.
Also, there is no "I'm not sure option," which is how I would vote.

Holli, I didn't realize the bias I might have been spinning, they weren't meant to do that, those were just a few of my thoughts. But looking back, you are absolutely right. I wish I had added some of your points to counter those. I wonder if that makes it sound like I think mine are sharper; interestingly enough, I seem to be the only person who thinks mine are duller.

I don't think the question itself is bias, but the results could sure be interpreted to reflect the way I presented the post in its entirety. Also, an "I'm not sure option" would have been a good idea as well.

One thing I know for sure is that my razors are sharper than the factory edges I've tried on NOS razors.

I'd say that the majority of people on here probably have much sharper razors then they had, except maybe BITD in Japan. Those guys have been into getting stuff really sharp for a long time.

I think that most of the people back then were much more skilled at straight shaving, though, and could get a good shave they were happy with with a razor most on here would consider pretty dull.

Then again, there is that Popeye cartoon where Bluto tests a razor with a HHT (the razor is so sharp the hair screams and splits before it touches the blade), so I guess I'll have to go with undecided, also.

I would also bet that BITD men hated shaving and bitched about it the way most of us did when we used cartridge blades.

Jordan

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Originally Posted by Pete_S

I'd say that the majority of people on here probably have much sharper razors then they had, except maybe BITD in Japan. Those guys have been into getting stuff really sharp for a long time.

I think that most of the people back then were much more skilled at straight shaving, though, and could get a good shave they were happy with with a razor most on here would consider pretty dull.

Then again, there is that Popeye cartoon where Bluto tests a razor with a HHT (the razor is so sharp the hair screams and splits before it touches the blade), so I guess I'll have to go with undecided, also.

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Just out of curiosity, if you think back in the day people were better at shaving than they are today, why do you think the opposite of honing?

I am abstaining from this poll simply because I wasn't around BITD, and there's no way for me to know how my razors compare, unless I were to come upon a pro from BITD and have him judge, or if I came across a time machine...in which case, I think I would go and scoop up a lot of awesome razors and bring them back :p

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Originally Posted by avatar1999

bring them back :p

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You mean forward? ;-p
When you do, bring me some Sheffield steel from the mid and late 1800's. I'll PM you my favorite makers... ;-p

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Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Back in the day, shaving others with a straight or honing straights might have been someone's full time job - I'd assume that person would be pretty good at it. Back in the day, there would have been a good chance (I think) that those who honed learned how to hone directly from others - I think it's easier to learn in person than over the internet. "Vintage" natruals seem, for the most part, to be better than their "new" brothers and sisters. We also talk about how, often, the old ways of doing and making things were better; why should honing be an exception?

Consider also, the size of barber hones suggests to me barbers carried them around all the time to touch up dull razors. How often do you touch up yours?

Just noticed (yup, still thinking about this question) that your two points both point towards the same bias.
Also, there is no "I'm not sure option," which is how I would vote.

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Back to the Vintage hone thing. Why are Vintage better? Coticule for instance. They came from the same quarry. Why are they better than the newer ones mined today. Are the hones today somehow inferior to their Vintage cousins. Just because Vintage is still around doesn't mean it's better. Will the hones I have today in my collection, The natural hones be considered better in 100 years. As I said, When hones are half a billion years old, I don't see what difference 100 years makes. It's the stone itself, I doubt it has anything to do with the age. Were there bad stones 100 years ago, probably...maybe as you said earlier, they only kept the good ones. Same holds true today.

What about Shapton. They make a pretty good hone....I realize it's not natural, but I'd love to see a test with a Vintage stone compared to a newer minded hone today, a good one. I still think, IMHO it's semantics.

Food for thought:

Here's an interesting point. Ardennes recently opened a mine that has been shut since the 1960's. So, the stones that came out of there in the 60's would be considered vintage today. They've extracted more Coticule from that mine recently. I have some. Does that make the stones I have Vintage? Are the ones that came out in the 60's somehow better than the one's they extracted today?

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Originally Posted by zib

Back to the Vintage hone thing. Why are Vintage better? Coticule for instance. They came from the same quarry. Why are they better than the newer ones mined today. Are the hones today somehow inferior to their Vintage cousins. Just because Vintage is still around doesn't mean it's better. Will the hones I have today in my collection, The natural hones be considered better in 100 years. As I said, When hones are half a billion years old, I don't see what difference 100 years makes. It's the stone itself, I doubt it has anything to do with the age. Were there bad stones 100 years ago, probably...maybe as you said earlier, they only kept the good ones. Same holds true today.

What about Shapton. They make a pretty good hone....I realize it's not natural, but I'd love to see a test with a Vintage stone compared to a newer minded hone today, a good one. I still think, IMHO it's semantics.

Food for thought:

Here's an interesting point. Ardennes recently opened a mine that has been shut since the 1960's. So, the stones that came out of there in the 60's would be considered vintage today. They've extracted more Coticule from that mine recently. I have some. Does that make the stones I have Vintage? Are the ones that came out in the 60's somehow better than the one's they extracted today?

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I'm not going to get into this again other than to say that, again, I think you are mistaking and misrepresenting what I'm saying. As such, I do not think your post is a direct response to mine. You and other members are free to interpret what you want, how you want, but I want to try to avoid having your posts cloud the intent and meaning of my posts.

I do not think there is any more accurate answer then 'it depends'. It depends on which point in history we are talking about, it depends on whate region or part of the world we are talking about. The members of this forum have time and again seen examples of 'vintage' blades come up on ebay that have been horribly mangled by years of poor honing. We have seen examples of cheap homemade razors from the 1600's that likely could not be given a decent edge by a modern honemister if their life depended on it. We also know, as a previous poster pointed out, that the Japanese have been making stuff stupidly sharp for thousands of years and their masterly crafted razors are no exception. So it can go either way, depending on where and when.
However, if you mean on average. If we were to take 100 random blades from people and barbers from say, 1850, and compare their sharpness to 100 random blades from the memebers of this forum. Then I think the blades on this forum would be sharper on average.
*edit* re-reading the origional question I see barbershops were specifically mentioned. Barbers are out to make money from shaves. And they would do alot of shaves 'Back in the day'. As such, they would only be concerned with getting their blades sharp enough to cut the next customers hair fairly well. Likely falling back on technique to make up any nagging dullness that would make the shave uncomfortable. Notice how the hot towel and good latherings are always associated with going to the barber. whereas some forum members can actually get away with just using water. So, given that barbers see their razors as tool, that only need to be sharp enough to 'work' and the forum member here actually go to the trouble of buying microscopes and spend hundreds of dollars on finishing hones, and have the time and passion to put it all together to make the blade as sharp as humanly possible. I am going to have to say that again, the average forum member is gong to have a sharper blade than a barber 'back in the day'.

I'd imagine that our razors today are sharper than BITD. The reason being that we have improved technology in the form of synthetic hones, pastes and sprays, which can probably put a better edge on a razor than was possible.

We also have the internet and SRP so we can all throw ideas into the melting pot and find the one that works best, so on average most razors will be sharper.

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Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Just out of curiosity, if you think back in the day people were better at shaving than they are today, why do you think the opposite of honing?

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Well, I didn't mean to get into the middle of an old argument, but there are a couple reasons. First, what is done here is a recreational activity, and there is much more attention to detail. Time and resources are used to hone a razor to the maximum amount of sharpness it can get. In that past, I'd say the approach was much more pragmatic, and that they were happy with a razor that was sharp enough to get the job done, and really weren't concerned with getting it as sharp as possible. Also, as I mentioned, I think they could shave more skillfully, so their standards were probably lower.

Second, they didn't have resources like this website. One person can have a good idea, post it, and if its accepted, it becomes part of the recommended honing routine. The honing techniques recommended now are a conglomerate of good ideas by different people, and they've evolved over time as other people have good ideas to modify them. In the past you had nowhere near this amount of information and feedback. There were apprenticeships and schools, but I think that in an apprenticeship you would have just learned the ideas of the barber who was teaching you, and the schools were prolly pretty rigid in what they taught as well.

Third, I think there are better synthetic stones available, and the understanding of the stones and where it should fit in to a routine is better then it was previously. Also, there aren't a alot of European naturals that are considered a good finishers (now), so they would have been somewhat rare, and very few in Europe/US would have any knowledge of Japanese stones. So that means that most finish honing would have been done on a barbers hone, what was locally available, what they thought sounded good out of a barber supply book, ect. How sought after the good natural hones are by such a small community seems to me to reinforce that they weren't common.

I'm sure there were some barbers with an Esher or coti and 40 years of experience that relished putting an edge on a razor that would make the honemisters here green with envy, but I think they were prolly rare.

Edit: Didnt mean to reiterate ideas previously posted. I started this some hours ago, got ADD then came back to it.

No idea how my blades compare to those BITD. None of us can possibly say.
Some barbers blades would have been phenomenally sharp & they'd have taken pride in that. Others would have been awful because they didn't have the skill or inclination to improve them.

It certainly is an odd question.

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Originally Posted by ben.mid

No idea how my blades compare to those BITD. None of us can possibly say.
Some barbers blades would have been phenomenally sharp & they'd have taken pride in that. Others would have been awful because they didn't have the skill or inclination to improve them.

It certainly is an odd question.

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I have this idea of the "unknown edge"; the edge that the individual doesn't have but the community does, the edge that someone else hones, the edge thats on the shave ready razor in the mail, or the edge that got away.

This particular unknown was "the edge that may have been lost in time".

I almost want to say a large *point* of the question was that none of us can possibly say what that edge was, and that, because we all have a different opinion on what it might've been, that it could give us clues as to how confident/happy we are with the "known" edge: the edge we hone, the one that we're going to shave with tomorrow morning, the one that's going to decide the mood of the rest of our day.

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Originally Posted by avatar1999

I am abstaining from this poll simply because I wasn't around BITD, and there's no way for me to know how my razors compare, unless I were to come upon a pro from BITD and have him judge, or if I came across a time machine...in which case, I think I would go and scoop up a lot of awesome razors and bring them back :p

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You aren't supposed to know, thats the point! Please vote :p

Some people's razors will be sharper than the BITD barbers. Some will be less sharp. Mine fall in the first category. My honing either pushes the edge out or maintains it (I've only brought one edge in, due to having to remove massive amounts of spine to correct some problems from previous honing) barbers would have maintained it... so it comes down to refinement, and my final stone is much finer grit than anything a barber would have used back in the day. I have much more time available to finish my razors than any barber who was concerned with making a living would have been willing to take.

Of course, my razors at this exact moment are probably about tied with most barbers BITD... as I left my finisher at home and am using my Swaty to finish the ones I work with during break. The important thing to note is that the Swaty doesn't suffer from any lacking sharpness. If my primary finisher achieves any improvement, it's from bevel polish, not additional sharpness. Even coming off the Swaty I achieve razor cuts (painless slicing) and zero tug on atg throat. So while my razors at home are sharper than a BITD barber, I can't say with any certainty that they provide a better shave. They really just look prettier under a scope and theoretically "could" be better shavers... the difference is well out of my ability to percieve it though.

There was no, "How on earth could I possibly know" option so I couldn't vote. Even with a, "Some probably were sharper, others probably weren't" I'd have given it a go. I can't see how you could have any confidence that any of the answers were correct. (Head explodes pondering variables involved:).)

I'm defining sharper as "thinner edged". That's actually what it means (one could argue that other variables related to cutting ability may also be considered, but edge thickness is overwhelmingly the dominant variable to the extent where it is the most commonly used definition of sharpness, so it's good enough for me). I think people need to realize that shave performance and sharpness are not necessarily directly correlated. Sharpness is measurable, shave performance is entirely subjective (unless the razor is really bad... and I mean really, really bad).

Some of us shave without high grit synthetic stones or paste, but if your back in the day time-line is brief enough they had those.

Reading A Treatise on Razors (searchable here) it seems they had the same questions and problems we read about today on the forums. Considering all the "miracle" strops and hones I have seen advertisements for I would say there were quite a few BITD with maintenance problems, who struggled to get a good shave.

With the info and access we have to day I think we can more readily do what the best did back then. The average guy today uses a disposable or electric and most likely does not enjoy his shave. BITD it was likely the same; the average guy did not particularly enjoy the process, and had some problems with edges.

If we compare our work with the best :tameshigiri:those who had the better tools, and knew how to use them; then, I say no: we are not sharper. There is still that same threshold of bevel angle and edge thinness we cannot cross without edge failure. Steel remains steel; stone=stone; skill/skill. Without those we are left to the various shapes and forms of beard and mustache.