Thread: Why HHT is important or is not?

Root out? I always did it the other way, because it is much harder to do, and thought thats the correct way to do it. My razors usually pass the HHT with root in, I think I will try it with the root out too. I searched the wiki, and that writes root out too, I don't know why I was doing it the other way. Maybe because it is much easier, and I felt like it is cheating.
After two years of honing it seems like I can still learn something new

What made the HHT useful for me was calibrating it in a way that also demonstrated its sensitivity to razor wear. First, I chose a consistent source of hairs: my chest hairs, only the longer white ones. Second, I'd HHT the shave-ready blade, that is, after its preshave stropping. Then, after shaving I'd do another HHT and could detect the slight degradation from all the work the blade had done. Finally, I'd do my full stropping routine as if taking the blade out of the stand for another use, and HHT to see how that improved the just-used edge.

All this calibrated my HHT to my own hair and to the changes my blade goes through in normal use.

I think it's more useful to think in terms of MY HHT than of The HHT, because we don't have a standard test fiber. That's also why I haven't bothered with numerical scores. I know what my best, freshest edge does to a HH, and have an internal scale of about how dulled a blade has become.

That's how I've made the HHT useful for myself.

Best wishes

Just to address the issue of weather or not a razor can pass the hht and not give a good shave, I've read some threads by guys that sharpen their razors using sand paper that goes all the way down to .1 microns and they end up having to dull it down a little on crox or something like that because it is very uncomfortable to shave right off the sand paper. I'll be willing to bet those razors pass any form of hht.

Originally Posted by roughkype

What made the HHT useful for me was calibrating it in a way that also demonstrated its sensitivity to razor wear. First, I chose a consistent source of hairs: my chest hairs, only the longer white ones. Second, I'd HHT the shave-ready blade, that is, after its preshave stropping. Then, after shaving I'd do another HHT and could detect the slight degradation from all the work the blade had done. Finally, I'd do my full stropping routine as if taking the blade out of the stand for another use, and HHT to see how that improved the just-used edge.

All this calibrated my HHT to my own hair and to the changes my blade goes through in normal use.

I think it's more useful to think in terms of MY HHT than of The HHT, because we don't have a standard test fiber. That's also why I haven't bothered with numerical scores. I know what my best, freshest edge does to a HH, and have an internal scale of about how dulled a blade has become.

That's how I've made the HHT useful for myself.

Best wishes

Well done indeed! Your point that it is not a test but your personally developed test is right to the point. I'd go further and say that the differences in hair qualities is not a problem but an advantage. I keep plastic bags in my honing bin filled with hair from different people I know. Asking them for it can verge on the creepy, but once they understand the purpose they happily volunteer. Using them, I can do HHT grading a whole different way, by going from the comparatively thick chest hairs and moving on to the long, thin blonde hairs of my step-daughter. After honing and stropping, a hair that gets clipped nicely from my chest means the blade will shave fine. If a fine, blonde hair gets clipped, I'm in for a great shave. If I can clip a hair from my red-headed secretary, I'd better be really careful during the next shave because that W&B will shave just like a Feather DX SS. That's a very good thing as long as I'm careful.

I think you'd better be careful just having a red-headed secretary!

I like your method of multiple hairs, but could not use it myself... people think I'm weird enough as it is!

I am. Very careful!

I think the HHT is valuable, as long as it is calibrated to a known hair with a known result. I use my wife's hair, she has thick long straight hair, I know the razor is sharp enough to shave with when it passes the HHT at a 3 or above. The HHT says NOTHING about how smooth the shave is going to be. For me I can get HHT'5 in the 4-5 range with a Naniwa 12K followed by CBN sprays, but it is a harsh shave.


Again for ME, the HHT is a measure of how sharp the blade is, says NOTHING about the smoothness.

I have read many people say they get great shaves from a razor the fails the HHT, I would love to try one of those razors because I have a hard time believing it.

Originally Posted by jeness

Root out? I always did it the other way, because it is much harder to do, and thought thats the correct way to do it. My razors usually pass the HHT with root in, I think I will try it with the root out too. I searched the wiki, and that writes root out too, I don't know why I was doing it the other way. Maybe because it is much easier, and I felt like it is cheating.
After two years of honing it seems like I can still learn something new

I disagree with the "root out" method, too. A razor doesn't have to be very sharp to cut a hair that direction. I think the hanging hair test is, for the most part, useless to test for shave readiness. Especially if it's held with the root out, which makes even a relatively dull razor catch and cut. What has been a good test was mentioned earlier and called "tree topping". If I can knock the tips off my armhairs without touching my arm and without any popping or pulling and nothing more than maybe a tingle and the hairs fall over on the blade, then I get a good shave. Note that this is like a hanging hair test except with finer hair and "tip out" instead of "root out". It really makes no sense to me to test a razor's cutting ability on a hair that's root out because it's ability to cut hair should be tested in the same way that it will have to cut the hair when it shaves and that's never root out. This is just my opinion, of course, and should be taken as such.

I think it is also important to note that a blade can be blunt as a butterknife over 90 percent of the edge and pass some version of the hanging hair test if it's tested on the other 10% of the blade.... and the shave will be awful. Your shave will only be as comfortable as the dullest part of the blade will allow. It's dull spots that really get your attention when shaving. The weakest link principle is definitely at work on shaving razors.

Originally Posted by Doc226

I think the HHT is valuable, as long as it is calibrated to a known hair with a known result. I use my wife's hair, she has thick long straight hair, I know the razor is sharp enough to shave with when it passes the HHT at a 3 or above. The HHT says NOTHING about how smooth the shave is going to be. For me I can get HHT'5 in the 4-5 range with a Naniwa 12K followed by CBN sprays, but it is a harsh shave.


Again for ME, the HHT is a measure of how sharp the blade is, says NOTHING about the smoothness.

I have read many people say they get great shaves from a razor the fails the HHT, I would love to try one of those razors because I have a hard time believing it.

If this how real HHT looks like so I`m even not in door steps. Looks like I will never do my HHT. Guess my blades are not sharp enough.

Originally Posted by proximus26

If this how real HHT looks like so I`m even not in door steps. Looks like I will never do my HHT. Guess my blades are not sharp enough.

That is not how I normally do my HHT, this is the sharpest I have ever gotten a blade, it was a Fili 14 I honed for another member, shave was fantastic.