Thread: HHT question

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?

Originally Posted by TheFatFace

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?

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

Originally Posted by Cangooner

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?

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!

Listen to this man. He's a doctor!

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...

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Listen to this man. He's a doctor!

Yes, but to be fair, I really should only be consulted in historical emergencies.

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.