Thread: New razor - sharpness concerns (was professionally honed)

I just got my new razor in the mail from Classic Shaving. It's a Dovo Prima Klang and I bought it professionally honed from classic shaving. I've shaved with it twice and it seemed to work fine, one WTG pass did a more than decent job. The only thing is out of curiosity I tried doing a HHT on it and it couldn't even pop a hair! I know that many beginners feel that their razors aren't sharp enough, but shouldn't it be able to cut a hanging hair?

I have no intentions of re-honing it myself as I don't have enough experience and it shaves fine. Just wondering if this is normal and what people's experiences have been with the professional honing at Classic Shaving.

BTW I'm fairly new at this so I may be doing something wrong although I think my technique is decent.

Thanks all!

If $razor = "shaves fine" { $otherTests = null; }

Originally Posted by MattCastle

I have no intentions of re-honing it myself as I don't have enough experience and it shaves fine. !

Yea, don't go looking for problems.

Besides the HHT is one of those things that often doesn't work for many and is really meaningless in general. Shaving is the only thing that matters.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

If $razor = "shaves fine" { $otherTests = null; }

I will steel this comment. I love it

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

If $razor = "shaves fine" { $otherTests = null; }

That is awesome. Reminds me of the time I put <smalltalk> <!smalltalk> tags into an email I sent to a guy at work. Chuckles galore.

Forget about the HHT. If it shaves well, it is sharp enough.

I recall fiddling with the HHT and boooo! What a waste of time. If it shaves a little hair off the arms, then thats a better sign of performance. But as always, the shave test is the ultimate feedback.

Nice Razor!

Pabster

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

If $razor = "shaves fine" { $otherTests = null; }

God, I'm having flashbacks to Visual Basic Programming

Sometimes when you are honing an edge you can have a microscopic jaggard edge which will give you a world of misery when you try to shave. But this same edge, because of the microscopic jaggard edge will pop almost any hair. The haning hair test is mostly useless.

After a little more than two years of shaving with a straight razor and attempting to hone for most of that time I can say the only test of sharpness that counts is the shave test.

To echo what others have said, the purpose of the razor is to shave facial hair. The HHT is a test that is used in assessing the honing of a razor but there are so many variables in terms of the edge and the individual hair that it is not a dependable test for everyone. If it shaves well that is all that matters. For some the HHT works to assess an edge, for others , because of the qualities of their hair, it will never be a dependable/repeatable test.

Thanks for the advice everybody. I guess after hanging around the honing and workshop forums I was getting the impression that the sharpness tests were fairly definitive in assessing an edge.