Thread: HART Razor

And the biggest question yet- Was it worth $250?

More thoughts on the honing angleL By way of comparison, my DDWE has a honing angle of a bit over 18 degrees. The Feather Super Pro has a final bevel angle of around 25 degrees. I've got another razor with a honing angle of 24.5 degrees that I had somebody make to provide a counterpoint to the low-honing-angle blade I mentioned earlier. So there's a wide range that works fine, but as you get to the low end things definitely get weak.

One thing that struck me when I was taking those measurements is that it's much larger than it seems, or conversely that it feels like a much smaller razor in my hand (though I haven't shaved with it yet) than it really is. My initial assumption was that it was 11/16ths or so but instead it's a whole size larger. I think the relative thinness of the blade is saving so much weight that it feels like a much smaller razor. With any razor - even a wedge - most of the weight of the blade is in the spine and shank, so any reduction in thickness there has a huge impact on the weight of the razor. With a blade this wide, and a 1/4 grind to boot, you'd expect it to feel pretty hefty but it really doesn't, it feels smaller than e.g. the 6/8 Dovo Tortoise which is a heavy-spined hollow-ground razor. Framebacks have this same characteristic for those who are fans of that grind, and the ultimate expressions of this esthetic are probably those swedish framebacks with the 1/64th thick shank and the soldered-on spine piece.

To some extent the shallow angle also makes it easier to get a sharper-feeling edge. I don't think it allows you to get an actually sharper edge, if you were to look at it under an electron microscope, because that's limited by the mechanical strength of the steel even at the usual honing angle. But I think it reduces cutting friction a bit, by reducing the angle the whiskers aren't pried as far apart as they're being cut. For example, that 24.5 degree razor feels like a Sheffield wedge with a normal honing angle, but it has 64hrc steel instead of the typical W&B hardness of around 54hrc so it is probably actually sharper than your average sheffield wedge.

What I' guess I'm saying is if the honing angle is thick enough to allow the edge to stand up to a reasonable amount of use then this could be a really nice shaver, much better than I would have thought a priori.

I've been asked whether the shallow honing angle could be a result of Tim Zowada's involvement in the project, since he advocates a system that uses tape to achieve a double bevel, and the tape will also increase the honing angle.

This is possibly. But with a honing angle so shallow and a 13/16th size blade it would need many layers to get to more standard honing angle. This is still a quite controversial technique, especially for a non-damascus razor or razor with an undecorated spine, so I feel it is a pretty major design error to require the use of tape on a production razor. But I don't think it was designed for this honing style, at least not by the Hart guys themselves, though it's possible they inherited this from Zowada without knowing the reasoning. Anybody here with a Zowada razor that can measure its honing angle and see how it compares?

This line from the Hart website is germane: "At Hart Steel, we use one layer of electrical tape, to protect the spine, while honing. The tape is placed lengthwise on the spine and then folded over the sides. The tape is optional, but we like it."

So they are clearly not advocating the 3-4 layers of tape it would take to get this razor into the range of normal honing angles, nor are they advocating any sort of double bevel.

However, in my experience razors with this shallow of a honing angle do benefit from a steeper final angle, so when it comes time to hone it I will almost certainly be using 4 layers of tape for the final passes.

Shave report.

Details, in case it matters:

Gold-Dachs Spezial
Kanoyama #3 strop from Martin @ Rasurpur.de
Since this was its first shave I gave it 45 laps on leather only, no canvas.

It's definitely shave ready, and feels like it was honed on a coticule or escher. Not surprising since that's what their website claims they finish on.

The edge is unevenly sharp (the belly is sharper than the toe), which I think is humorously ironic given the recent discussions in the B&B thread about that smiling edge being a little trickier to hone evenly (but see the strop discussion below for another explanation). So it pulled a bit on my upper lip. Also, my concerns about the narrow honing angle may well have some validity - the edge didn't really seem to hold up the way I would like over the two passes. I didn't take it back to the strop but it had more trouble in the second pass than I would have liked for a freshly honed razor. I'm not sure how much of this is from the narrow honing angle and how much of it has some other cause (different finishing hone than I normally use, possible brittleness issues compounding that narrow angle, etc).

I really want to take it to the translucent or nakayama except that I want to try to do an extended run with the edge they supplied to see how it holds up under use.

So much for the good news. The bad news is I'm really, really effing p*ssed at the razor right now, so I'm probably gonna put it away for a while so I can cool off. You know those old Robeson Shuredges with the motto "The Spine That Won't Cut Your Strop?" I never knew what they were talking about - how in the heck does a spine cut a strop? Well, the Hart guys seem to have stumbled into the answer, because it cut the heck out of my beautiful Kanoyama - it looks like someone took 40-grit sandpaper to the upper third of it. Examination of the razor reveals that the edges of the front of the spine are sharply cornered instead of being relieved a bit, so each time the razor came forward that corner of the spine shaved off a little thread of leather from the spot where I flipped until the tip swept off the other side of the strop. This is also a possible explanation for why the tip of the razor was noticeably less sharp than the rest - the part of the strop responsible for the tip had turned into leather corduroy. While this provides some exoneration for the Hart honing skills, it really p*sses me off more because it means that the damage to the Kanoyama isn't merely cosmetic but functional, so adding to the insult of the $100 premium for this razor is the injury to my $150 Kanoyama. This has turned out to be a very expensive experiment.

I have radiused the spine with 600 grit sandpaper so this shouldn't happen again, but it's gonna take awhile before I can look at this razor without wanting to reach for a sledgehammer.

Ouch. Sorry to hear about your strop. I guess I was wrong about the quality control I expected coming out of Heartsteel. I thought for sure that would be their main selling point. And I assumed that those first 100 or so razors out the door would be double or triple checked by their crew.

Too bad about your strop.
That spine incident is strange. Why the heck should a spine be like that?
Let's see what others have to say.

Sounds like it's time to contact the manufacturers...their market is listening to you, so should they.

You just convinced ME not to buy one...

A new start-up of any type of business is an true uphill battle to get of the ground well. I'm definitely still hoping they get these kinks ironed out and they excel.

Sorry to hear about the strop damage. Ah, the Robeson Nu-Bak





Chris L

Originally Posted by JimR

Sounds like it's time to contact the manufacturers...their market is listening to you, so should they.

You just convinced ME not to buy one...

Yes a +1 from me too. The geometry issue is my problem with them .... assuming they are all basically alike. Being a semi custom I wonder if mparker762 had say three of them by the various artisans to test if there might be some variation between them or if they are a 'cookie cutter' profile.

I suppose it is unlikely that some may have a steeper honing angle than others ? I don't mind the smiling spine/edge profile and the sharp edges on the spine is a relatively easy fix but the geometry of the blade is what it is.

If you're shelling out $250 for a semi-custom I would expect that there should be nothing to fix. Granted, they will probably fix this issue pronto, but I would've expected more...