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Hi
I've been playing with a coticule recently, repeatedly honing and blunting an Ebay special, and while I'm starting to get a passable shave from it, I can't seem to get it to pass the HHT. The hair on my head is fairly fine so is SWMBOs hair, and that doesn't work at all. But I have had success with hair that is a bit coarser, shorter and ermm... curlier, is that cheating?
Don't worry about the HHT. What is your ultimate goal? To cut a single hair that you are holding, or to have a great shave? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFatFace
HHT helps some folks evaluate their edge, but for a lot of us (myself included) it is just a thing that some folks do. So relax, don't worry about HHT, and focus on the only test that matters: the shave test!
Ive honed up razors that passed the HHT. They shave terribly. Forget the HHT it means nothing
Listen to this man. He's a doctor!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cangooner
Keeping in mind that the shave is ultimately the only test that matters ...... I like fooling with the hht. I also have very fine hair and thought, when I first began honing and trying hht, that the fine hair was the source of my difficulty. After awhile, as my honing practice progressed, I began getting positive results 50% of the time and more.
One day I was attempting hht with a long hair I had pulled out of my hair brush without any success. I noticed a used Feather DE blade laying nearby and grabbed it up. The DE blade did the positive hht with no problem on that hair. So I knew it wasn't the hair. OTOH, I have had some of my hair that wouldn't always cut hht with a DE without repeated attempts.
The other day I pulled two hairs out of the hair brush side by side. Not intentionally. I didn't feel like trying to separate them so I just began the hht with my straight. The edge slid across one of the two and popped the other easily. So I then separated them and did each in turn. One cut easily and other was sliding off of the edge until it got near the heel.Then it began to cut.
I'm another who obsesses over HHT, but calibrated for hairs from my wife's brush. When a blade isn't quite there off the hones, 10 or so laps on CrOx, then a full 60 or so on my Latino brings it into line. This regimen produces smooth shaves for me. As with every aspect of SR shaving, YMMV.
Sorry, I typed Latigo! Stupid auto-correct. My wife from Guatemala would frown on my stropping on any Latinos, I'm sure!
+1 on not worrying about the HHT so much. I used to drive myself NUTS because I could not get a good HHT off of the stone (before stropping), but I found out that I was still able to get a good shave nonetheless...just for sh!ts and giggles I'll do the HHT AFTER I strop, and this will usually tell me if the blade is sharp, but does NOT tell me whether it will shave smoothly...
Yes, but to be fair, I really should only be consulted in historical emergencies. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus
Although I'm relatively new to honing, I've learned not to obsess over the HHT. Both my wife and I have very fine hair and for the heck of it I tried the HHT with a brand new blade in a Feather Artist. It'd cut the hair very close to where I was gripping it but only at the root end of the hair. As the hair got shorter it would curl but not cut it. Toward the tip, it wouldn't cut it at all.
The problem with the HHT is there are too many variables IMHO - thickness of hair being the biggest one. I usually try it anyway after stropping a newly honed razor but if I've been checking out my edge as I progress up the stones and the striations I create on the 1k are disappearing on the 4k, the 4k's are disappearing on the 8k, etc., I don't sweat it if it won't pass the HHT.
As I said, I'm a relative noob at this but I shaved yesterday with a razor I honed that wouldn't pass the HHT (I tried it just before I shaved after stropping) and got a great shave. YMMV.
For most noob honers, HHT should be HTT: Hanging Thumb Test, as most nick their thumb as opposed to the hair it's holding.
Edit: for proof of the above I offer this.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...one-wrong.html
LOL....How about the TPPT..."Thumb-Pad Penetration Test"?? I seem to be really good at that!! :pQuote:
Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus
Attachment 117064
Funny-When I'm honing several razors, followed by kitchen knives (my usual method), between the slurry dust and constant TPT's, my left thumb gets pretty shredded, and my legs lose a lot of hair.
Hone mange...the next great epidemic!Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad
I've been using the HHT to evaluate my razors after honing and before shaving for two years without a problem.
The fact that hairs are different is not a problem at all. In fact it is quite the opposite. The different types of hair allow the honer to evaluate his progress. I use hairs from all kinds of sources, the ladies at work, chest hair, and I'll go no further than that. I've never had a blade perform the HHT on a finer hair without then producing a great shave. The shave may be the ultimate test, but it is nice to have a test I can perform right at the hones without having to lather up, etc. Like the Library makes clear, it is not a binary, fail or pass test. It takes some time to get comfortable with it and be able to predict shaving results from how a single hair behaves on the blade. Like any test, it is too easy to blame the test for bad results, but it is not the fault of the HHT but the fault of one who is using it without putting in the due diligence to get it to work efficiently and predictably.
I leave my thumb alone but I spent the Christmas break honing and honing and honing on my brand new Zulu Grey. My arms were as smooth as a baby's bottom, and legs had very strange smooth patches all over them. Arms are slowly recovering to a stubble stage so I can start honing again soon! Good thing it is long sleeve and pant season right now!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad
I leave my thumb alone but I spent the Christmas break honing and honing and honing on my brand new Zulu Grey. My arms were as smooth as a baby's bottom, and legs had very strange smooth patches all over them. Arms are slowly recovering to a stubble stage so I can start honing again soon! Good thing it is long sleeve and pant season right now!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad
The HHT is not a pointless exercise - it can be an excellent shave-proxy if combined with sufficient and pertinent data, like all tests and measures.
However, because it is a test it does need to be calibrated to you and your shaves - this is the "sufficient and pertinent data" bit. And unfortunately collecting that data takes time - repeated association between a particular HHT and the subsequent shave, over and over (and over) again. People may call this "experience", but I tend to view it as more regulated and directed than a series of mere experiences. But I guess that is not important... :)
Beware, however, these ridiculous categorisations of the HHT that you see bandied about. Even if theoretically there is such a thing as a "HHT1, HHT2, ...." etc, obtaining enough information (data) to adequately differentiate between the gradations of this ordinal scale makes their practical use extremely limited on an individual level, and absolutely laughable as an inter-rater descriptor of any merit whatsoever.
Finally, to answer your question, there is nothing wrong with using the "short and curly" hairs for the HHT. The key (see second paragraph above) is to be consistent so that your data collection is kept to a minimum. Every new "kind" of hair you decide to use creates another calibration scenario to collect data about, so if you go for the chest hairs, stick with them (for example).
Good luck,
James.
There are some good points here...but this topic is on rotation (it comes up every few months it seems).
If anyone cares, I use the hair on my arm, and my test is to cut hairs about 5mm above the skin in many places on the blade. I do not use this as a test of sharpness really, I use it as a gauge of uniformity of sharpness.
Perhaps my arm hair varies with humidity/time of year/menstrual cycle....I do not care. How the blade cuts the hair on that day can be observed, and I want all portions of the blade to cut it the same way;)
