Thread: Pasted Strops a rough guide

Hey Jim you are right that if a razor will cut arm hair at skin level it always will cut arm hair at skin level. But a razor that has a bevel set correctly can take arm hair off at skin level pretty much all the time at the correct 30 degrees. What I found work best for me to test sharpness was to see how high up the hair I could cut it off cleanly off of different paste or hones for that matter.

The idea of cutting the arm hair at different levels is similar to the HHT test but the hair is still attached to you giving the hair a different stiffness the farther you go from the skin make it harder to cut unless the razor is very sharp. I am looking for the same basic results as the HHT test. So when I say when I am done on DOVO green I can cut my arm hair just above skin level. I am cutting it a couple millimeters above skin level which will leave just a a little hair behind as if you were just trimming the hair. But if I was moving up the hair a couple more millimeters it would not cut or at least not cut cleanly. Then so on up the line with DOVO Red and DOVO Black.

There are all different test that you can use that are explained here: Sharpness tests explained - Straight Razor Place Wiki
I just found arm hair to be the best one for me.