Thread: Hair Popping Honing Help.

For reasons I won't get into, I'm going against all the sage advice that I acknowledge is well intentioned, and more than likely correct, and I'm trying to figure out some honing with almost no shaving experience under my belt.

I've watched many videos, several hours worth of videos on honing. But I'm left with two quesitons I hope you'll help me with.

1: None of the videos I've run across have actually been able to show what is being done when a guy runs a blade over his forearm. You can hear pricks/pops of hair, but I can't tell where the blade is at in relation to the skin, if the hair is coarse or fine, if he's slicing in the direction of hair growth or not, and so on. For you experienced guys out there, can you explain what you're doing. And then can you tell me how/why this is any different than a HHT which has less than stellar reputation for determining shave test readiness?

2: I'm working on a recent antique store find, Sterling 6/8 hollow ground razor that I've gotten to grab/pop hairs in one spot about an inch from the toe. This blade does not have a smile (maybe a smirk the last 1/4 inch to the heel) as attested by a straight edge. But the rest of the blade does not freely grab hair (it will cut wetted hair with a shaving like stroke, but I don't think that's what the guys on the honing vids are doing).

Thanks in advance for your patience and support.

In my Vids and in real life I pop the hair at skin level at the bevel set WTG in about 5 spots along the edge, I do not shave the hair, I simply touch the edge to it... All I need to know is that the bevel is set, how sharp it is doesn't matter to me at that level...

Now in the Vids at the end I am showing the hair pop above skin level but I do not do that in real life it is a useless test to me...

Honestly the more you hone the more that the TPT becomes the goto test for most people,,, never all

I usually shave a couple of hairs off every time I do the arm hair test. After honing damaged edges of new acquisitions there's usually not much of the original fur of my left arm left. The TNT I use in a much earlier stage, I never use the TPT.

If only one spot will cut hairs you still have a lot of work to do. At least you have shown that you know what to do, having fixed the one spot near the toe! I am afraid you'll nead to go back to the coarser hones and set the bevel along the entire edge.

Jim I am going through the same thing right now. I will probably get a shave ready razor here on the classifieds in a few weeks when I have the money, but for now it's just "guess and check." I have found in my experimenting that people's hair and maybe even the different steels just vary too much for those tests to have any relevance between people (although if it works for one person with their particular hair, I can see how it would be useful). For instance if I take my GF's hair off her brush, it's pretty easy to pass a HHT, but with my own it is tougher. The thumb pad test has been fairly helpful for me, but the thing that has helped the most is just when I think I am done honing, and the edge seems finished, take it into the bathroom and just do a few strokes on my face with just a little water/soap splashed on. If it seems to laser through the hairs fairly well, I decide to shave with it and see how it performs in a full shave. If it drags or seems uneven it goes back to the hones.

The hardest part about doing it this way, which is probably why all the experienced folks say not to do it, is that say you have what is an objectively 'shave ready' edge but you really have no clear idea so you shave with it to see. You get a pretty good but not great shave out of it, but then you wonder, "could I get better if I spent some more time on the hone?" And then you (well, "I") go back to the hone, and just waste time getting back to where I just was.

Well, that's more or less where I'm at. I picked up a J. Wosty wedge and this Sterling at antique shops. The Wosty has been improved but won't shave. It needs some grinding work that I don't have the right stones for, nor the money to acquire said stones. Thanks to Glen for his honing vids that enabled me to figure out what the blade needed, make some progress, and end frustration at not being able to get further.

The Sterling, being hollow ground doesn't have the same problem the Wosty has, so I spent last night honing on it. I'll try again this evening and see if I get any further. Perhaps the spot that IS grabbing hair is ever so slightly further extended from the spine than the rest of the blade? Maybe it's a non-visible smile.

Glen, thanks for your response. The razor seems to grab on the TNT, though I'll look over it more carefully tonight and see if it grabs better in the same spot that it catches hair. I've been going ATG on dry hair about 1/16th above the skin trying to get hairs to pop. After looking over the TNT, I'll put some more laps on her and try the TPT. From the Wiki and the vids I've watched, I THINK I know what to look for there...just didn't think of TPT last night.

P.S.--Got some Gorilla Glue and some test wood to try it on. If the weather's half decent this weekend I'll try things out and post my experience.


Edit: Just had this thought, sitting here with my mind on things other than the work I SHOULD be doing right about now...I picked up a Fatboy razor this week and grabbed some DE blades to try it out (been shaving with it since). Does anybody know how the DE blades compare to the truly shave ready straights? I've got Wilkinson blades (they were handy). Maybe I could try the TPT and TNT with them to help get an idea of when I'm in the ballpark? What do you think?

That sounds like maybe the blade is warped a little bit? On the Wade & Butcher I have, the toe was raised from the rest of the blade a little on one side, and it took a lot of patience to get it even, and take out the gentle frown on the other side. It is now flat all the way across the bevel, but the warping is apparent by the fact that the length of the bevel is uneven, in more or less opposite ways from one side of the edge to the other. If that makes any sense. I was able to get through it on a 1k stone with a lot of patience, but if I had to do it again I would not want do it without a coarser stone. On the bright side, working through that really gets the muscle memory for honing built up. Does yours push/undercut water evenly across the bevel, on both sides? That for me is the biggest visual indicator of how even the bevel is when I am setting it.

I move the razor slowly over the arm, perpendicular to the hairs, and parallel to the arm (although they go all different wild directions).

I am registering how effectively the edge is mowing down hairs, at about a distance of one inch off the arm.

Sometimes I might get the sense that I'm mowing down half the hairs, sometimes 3/4 of the hairs. I'm essentially honing, and then looking for an improvement over the last "run". I'm looking for an increase in the percentage.

Honestly, if I can mow down 3/4s of all the hair the razor comes in contact with, instantly, I'm usually pretty happy.

I do often shoot for 100% mow down, lopping off each hair instantly. For me, personally, I see no reason in wasting my time with trying to shave with a honing job of any less than 3/4 quality. I shoot for 100%, but sometimes loose patience.

For me the HHT (and arm hair test) is just the beginning of acceptable shaving. But, that's my hair.

Mine too. For me, hairs can pop before the edge is truly shave-ready--usually there's a bit of resistance when the hair catches before it pops. THe way I can tell for sure is when I feel nothing--they just pop. This is still not super-reliable for me; it's mainly a supplement to the TPT or shave test. It also depends on the hone it comes off of--a really smooth edge will not pop until it's really sharp, for example because it doesn't have big striations that will catch the hair. As always, YMMV.

Originally Posted by TheZ

That sounds like maybe the blade is warped a little bit...

It does seem to undercut water evenly (I say seem because what I see happen to the water on my hone is not quite what I see on the vids, but on the vids they're also using different stones than I am). I will say that using a felt tipped marker to reveal where the stone and blade are contacting reveals an even contact patch right along the very edge of the blade. This leads me to believe that there's no warping.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I move the razor slowly over the arm, perpendicular to the hairs, and parallel to the arm (although they go all different wild directions).

I am registering how effectively the edge is mowing down hairs, at about a distance of one inch off the arm.

Unlike the hair on my head and face, the hair on my arms is pretty fine...thick, but fine and it doesn't stand even half an inch off my forearm! That answers my question about the forearm test though.

After thinking on this a little more, I'm guessing that the spot 1" from the toe of the razor was simply not as blunted as the rest of the razor. This thing was floating around in a shoe box with safety razors, antique curling irons, and all kinds of other random junk, with no scales to even attempt to protect it. Considering those conditions, it looks FANTASTIC, but it also wouldn't be surprising that it'd have a rather odd blunting pattern.

I've got a game plan in mind for tonight and will post my results.

I can only offer one piece of advice:

1. Make sure every stone you're using is lapped flatter than a piece of glass.