Thread: Let's talk HHT

I am going to give a few pointers about the HHT from the one side that says "Parlor Trick" to the opposite camp of "HHT 1-5" ...

Please if you are an experienced Honer and use an HHT, add your story of how you developed it into a usable test...

In my personal experience I use a HHT, but not to determine shave readiness, I use it so that I know the edge is keen and ready to be shave tested, Only a shave test determines shave readiness...

Personally I think any HHT before the final stropping is a waste of time, IME it isn't accurate, perhaps you can develop it into an accurate test, myself I think the other sharpness test at the lower levels work better...

This has been repeated so many times it almost hurts my fingers to type it... The HHT is for use by the person that honed the blade, and that has developed an usable HHT, otherwise it is a JOKE!!!!
For a person who just got a professionally honed blade, to type the words HHT and I can't get it to pass, is a waste of typing..

The HHT has to be developed in reverse, if you are going to use it, after you have honed a shave ready edge, and have shave tested it, and absolutely KNOW it shaves... Then, and only then, do you start your journey to an HHT...
Strop the edge like you are going to shave, and then start playing with the HHT, try the hair both directions, try a clean fresh hair, try an old one off the brush, try angles, try no angles, try pulling, try no pulling... once you get it to pop, then try the same edge, same technique, before stropping the edge, and see if it fails... A usable HHT fails at one point, and passes at another...
This testing can take some time, and can be different on each blade, what you are striving for is a hair to pop that gives you information...That is a useful HHT.. BTW your own hair might not work at all, or work to easy, mine is that way, it pops at 1k and is useless as an indicator of anything...
My wifes hair will not pop at all until I am done honing, and have done the final stropping, so hers tells me something... Hers tells me that the edge is keen, it does NOT tell me how that keen edge shaves... Only the shave test tells me that...

I hope that clears some stuff up and helps a bit...

I will add this for all those people that find it necessary to say this over and over, the HHT does not work for everybody, it does not have anything to do with a shaveable edge, it is simply a tool, just like the TNT, TPT, AHT, Only the shave test, works to test shave readiness..

Yes you can have a perfectly good shaving edge, that YOU cannot get to pass an HHT, but I bet I can get it to pass, without doing anything other than stropping that edge...Because I have developed my HHT to work, and you haven't..

Just like everything else involved with honing a razor, consistency is the key to using the HHT correctly...