Stropping/HHT question...

Ok, so i just finished shaving with my new razor for the first time. (I did 3 passes. Mainly because im not too good at it yet. Took that many times to get all my whiskers.)

In case you havent seen any of my other posts, its as Dovo Prima Silver Steel. My question is about the HHT. After I was done, I tried the hanging hair test just for the heck of it. (I unfortunately didnt think to try it before...) My razor was honed by Lynn and it said i didnt need to strop before i shaved, so I didnt. Aside of me being a beginner, it was a good shave. I am going to spend more time with my preparation from here on out, but thats for a different thread...

Should I be able to slice a piece of hair from my wifes hair brush simply by pushing through it with my razor? If so, i cant do that. Not right now anyways. I realize it may be my stropping technique, but I really do feel like im getting better at it. I have been practicing on an older blade, which probably needs re-honing altogether. Obviously, I was never able to pass the HHT with that either. Should I be able to pass the HHT before I shave? If so, roughly how many laps do you think it would take on a new strop???

If Lynn honed it, and you got a good shave out of it, stop worrying about the HHT.

People differ in how much stropping they do between shaves. I find that ten laps after shaving (to dry the edge) and 40 laps before shaving, works _for me_.

The only way you'll find out what works _for you_ is to experiment with _your_ razor, strop, and technique.

If you can't get the HHT to work, and the razor still shaves nicely, you'll be in good company.

Charles

Since the shave was good I wouldn't worry too much about cutting hair out of your wife's hair brush. I usually do 50 linen followed by 50 leather. Some guys do 30/30 and various other combinations. Experiment with what works best for you. Stropping may or may not enable the HHT. Some hair seems to be more resistant to successful HHT than others. BTW, I have better luck if the root is held outboard. Has to do with the way the hair is constructed and it does make a difference. OTOH, the shave is the main thing. At least with me it is. YMMV. :)

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Originally Posted by kurtismj

Should I be able to slice a piece of hair from my wifes hair brush simply by pushing through it with my razor?

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The simple answer to that questions would be no, you shouldn't. The HHT test is one of those things all have heard about and very few know how to use correctly. It is also a very personal test, and one very much dependent upon the hair being used. To develop the HHT into something useful takes a lot of work and would require honing, HHT's and a lot of shaves. The test you should use for a correctly sharpened razor is the shave test - does the razor cut hair, and is it comfortable? If so, your razor is good.
Best of luck.

Cool. Thanks a lot for the quick replies! And to clarify, Im not so much worried or interested in cutting hair out of my wifes hair brush. I was just afraid that since I couldnt get it to do it after I did my post-shave strop, i may have accidently dulled the blade. I guess I was assuming that it was able to pass the HHT right out of the box from Lynn before i stropped. But ill never know since I didnt try it.

When asking this, I guess i was more concerned about the potential damage I may have done which would have affected my next shave. Im not as worried about it now. Just looking forward shaving again!

I use the HHT, but as a personally calibrated test when I'm honing.

If I have a razor that is popping hair coming off a honing session, then I know I'm in the ballpark for a shave test. If it's not popping, then a trip back to a stone is usually what needs to occur.

It's a test that requires a bit of experimentation IMO, and one that provides the honer with a ballpark figure. For instance, you may hone a razor and when it pops hair on an HHT, your personal experiences might dictate that you need to go back to do 25 more strokes on the 8K before you shave test. It would be a test that you have designed to work for you. Am I making sense....it's really early in the morning here.....

At the end of the day, it really is the shave test that matters. The proof is in the pudding.

Good luck!

The problem with the "shave test" is that it's not a test, it's a shave. When I shave. I'm not testing the blade's sharpness. I'm shaving with it. The shave is the ultimate goal, so logically it cannot function as a test of the blade's sharpness. It's the ultimate performance of the blade, but some testing (like a dress rehearsal) is helpful to know when the blade is ready for shaving. I can only shave so much. If you work on understanding the HHT, learn its complexities, and customize it to your own hair and usage, then it can tell you something.

If you want to explore the HHT, first of all forget about "popping" and cutting hair with it and instead try to use it to gradually gauge what effect your stropping (and later, honing) is having on the blade's sharpness.

Get some hairs from various parts of your body, like your arms, chest (I'll leave the rest to you), hairs of various thickness and stiffness. Then, as you strop and want to check your progress, hold your razor edge up and bring the hair downward into the blade slowly. Don't look so much for "popping" although you might see that. Look for the edge pulling on the hair, then tugging at it, then cutting a piece of it off. You can hold the hair close to its end or hold it half an inch or an inch away from the end. You can thus vary the force you are applying to the blade with the hair. As you see progress, you can then hold it farther from the end as the edge seems sharper.

Just remember that there really is no one HHT. It is a customizable method for gauging sharpness as you bring an edge to sharpness. It took me quite a bit of time, and some help from a member here, to find a way to make it of us in my honing and stropping. The way I perform it, and with my hair, it gives me an indication of when I have stropped enough. When my blade tugs the hair, then cuts off a piece (and based on my individual experience with the process), I know I have a blade I can shave with. That allows me to approach the shave as fun, not a matter of testing.

[QUOTE=ace;779259]The problem with the "shave test" is that it's not a test, it's a shave. QUOTE]

I understand what you're saying about shaving not being a test. However and logically, I'm not shaving my whole face with a blade that is coming off the hones. I'm shaving a small patch, maybe 3 square inches or less. In this way, it does function as a test. I'm using a small portion of my skin to determine if the blade has reached it ultimate smoothness. A shave is when I do my whole face.

I don't even worry about HHT. My type of hair, no matter how long or where it came from, will not pass a HHT, even with the sharpest of blades. The only way I can test is to actually lather up and shave.

I always wondered why I should hold the hair in the root side when performing HHT?
Isn´t the hair growing like a pine cone or palmtree with the "scales" growing upward?
The SRP Wiki says that you should hold the root side but many times I´ve read the opposite.
Is there any right or wrong here?

kurtismj,

As others have said do not worry about the HHT !

As I have have a 'high & tight' haircut, the only suitable hair I have in the house is my wifes.

Her hair is so fine that no DE razor blade, not even Feathers, will pass the HHT with it. What does that prove ? - absolutely nothing ! :)

Just shave with your razor; as Mr Abrams has said, the shave will tell you everything you need to know about your razors edge :)

Have fun & good shaving !

Best regards

Russ

Yes I don´t worry at the HHT at all but I wonder about the hair structure. Why do the SRP Wiki say that you should hold the hair in the rootside and others tell the opposite? I thought that the edge was supposed to catch between the "hair scales" at maximum ease and wonder wich way is right.
My own guess is that holding the hair in the top is the easiest way to get a good catch.

My understanding was that traditionally it is done with the root out so that the weight of the root would get you better stability. I find a few things in the Wiki, now and then, don't jive with my research or understanding. But, that is why it's called a Wiki and not an Encyclopedia.

But I presume that the shingles of the hair it pointing upward from the head and thereby I must hold the hair at the tip when performing the test.
The Wiki at SRP uses similar text as this site but at one place it says holding "at the root side" and the other "at the tip side"

Hanging Hair Test, from trick to probing method - Straight Razor Place Wiki

http://www.coticule.be/hanging-hair-test.html

I've tried to do some research on the HHT, and I would go with the second site you list.

One of the reasons that the HHT is such a mystery is that the minute it gets brought up it gets dismissed as a parlor trick. The second site you list at least tries to make some sense of it. I've still never "shave-tested". The HHT allows me to avoid that and just know from its results whether my blade is ready for shaving without having to shave to find that out.

I remain firmly convinced that we need some ingenious entrepreneur to market certified and approved hairs on which to hang these sharpness tests. Something like: blond #5, brunette #2, and red #6 with auburn #4 for a close equivalent. Your razor with your hair may do just fine with the vaunted HH test, but will it shine so brightly when tested with my hair? Perhaps not. Thus, for fairness and certainty, I think the media on which we hang this test can only be those certified and approved strands.

Then when your razor lops the hung strand of auburn #4, held by the standard blue dyed root end, and mine does as well, we will both know that our razors are equivalently sharp and either will shave the other's face to the same BB smoothness.

Now, of course, we will need an approved method to determine just how smooth is that babe's butt and on whose Herculean shoulders we will pile these great tasks.

:hmmm:

I always thought that you do the HHT holding the root end because that is how the hair grows from your face.

Or, maybe we should hold it at the tip or top end. Isn't that how it's harvested? Hold the tip, pinching as hard as you can and yank for all you're worth? Then with tears streaming down the cheeks you are about to shave, still grasping that testing strand by its tip, you apply the root end of that just plucked hair to the razor's edge. Hair cleaves and you're good to go, shave that is. Hair recoils, laughing at the razor's attempt at rendering it in twain, showing the shaver that his hone work was for naught and that at best he can only hope to shave again another day.

:banghead:

I forget who figured it out but because of the 'shingle' construction of the hair it is easier to get a positive HHT with the root out. I learned holding the root in, and could get it that way too more often than not, but now I always hold it root out. I need all the help I can get. :p Give it a try both ways and decide for yourself if there is any merit to one way as opposed to the other.

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Originally Posted by ace

One of the reasons that the HHT is such a mystery is that the minute it gets brought up it gets dismissed as a parlor trick. The second site you list at least tries to make some sense of it. I've still never "shave-tested". The HHT allows me to avoid that and just know from its results whether my blade is ready for shaving without having to shave to find that out.

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At present my body produces about 6 different types of hair, and each of them interacts very differently with an edge of a razor at any stage of it's sharpness, plus for a given hair and condition of it (freshly shampooed, dry, wet, holding it by the root or by the tip, distance from point of holding it to the edge, distance from the root to the edge) each of the over 500 razors I've used since becoming relatively proficient is interacting different with the hair.

So, if my own hair does very different things on the same razor, that's the only necessary datapoint that renders useless the simplistic yet most popular use of HHT without any regard of the hair itself.

Now, if you want to insist that you've got a test with hanging hairs that works for most people who haven't even held a razor, moreover have any idea what its edge should be at various points of honing and stropping, that'd just demonstrate how over your head you are.

Because of the simplicity you're implying, I'm absolutely certain that my definition of a passing HHT is vastly different than yours. My, and for that matter anybody else's, shave-worthy edges don't necessarily split my hair in two pieces.

In fact I don't even have to use hair or touch the edge in any way to know the razor will shave well - just looking at the microscope and the motion of the water during the honing stroke I know exactly when the razor is good. (I always strop more than the minimum needed, so that's not a factor.)

So, yeah HHT is absolutely a parlor trick until one knows how to use it properly to test edges, but at that point there are far quicker and better tests than HHT.

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Originally Posted by Portra160

But I presume that the shingles of the hair it pointing upward from the head and thereby I must hold the hair at the tip when performing the test.

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I hold it by the root. The hair is covered with a layer of dead cells called cuticle which is like shingles on a roof. The open ends point away from the root, so if you hold the hair by the tip it's easier for the razor edge to grab the hair by wedging in the gaps of those shingles.

But it really doesn't matter - to make a useful HHT you'll have to correlate the way your hair (or different types of it) interacts with various razor edges. When you find something that consistently shows a difference between edges that shave well and edges that do not, only then you can use it to extrapolate to predict how would an unknown edge shave based on the test. So, if holding the hair by the tip produces that difference do that, if holding it by the root does that then you know what to do.

It's really very simple as long as you understand that calibration lies in the essence of the test, and not just follow blindly somebody's procedure even if said procedure works perfectly for them and they'd swear it's the equivalent of 1+1=2.

So there you go: two moderators (one Senior, even) essentially agreeing with me. Could the day get any better? :shrug:

:rock:

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Originally Posted by Bruce

Could the day get any better? :shrug:

:rock:

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Probably not, but there is always the hanging membership test if you are in doubt :)

I'm surprised nobody's invented the pre-shave test :w

I did not have very good luck with the HHT test because it is just a pain to do. Just do the arm hair tree top test or a let tree top test. With experience you can tell if all you razor is sharp from toe to heel. You don't shave it to the skin so that it looks silly and it works pretty well. It will not tell you if it is smooth but if you are at the end of like a J-Nat or fine synthetic progression you can tell if it is sharp. Smoothness can be taken care of after you have the keenness down.

Later,
Richard

Later,
Richard

. . . And for most of us the "arm hair tree top test" is root held in.

I think the HHT is telling me something about the edge.
I recently have 2 similar Heljestrand knives honed for me, one with Asagi and one with Escher.
The Asagi knife is sharp as a Feather AC blade and easily cut a hanging hair hold by the tip or root.
The Escher knife only do HHT holding by the tip and i must do a little more pressure/scything with this one.
Booth give me a close smooth shave and shaving result is about the same.
But the HHT tells me just the same that I can feel when I shave with these.

You know, my old Norelco will just gobble up those hanging hairs. So who am I to question the validity of the vaunted HHT?

Hang it there, hair; hang in there.

:beer2:

‪Making DOVO Straight Razors‬‏ - YouTube


I think I poted this elsewhere today. Dovo uses synthetic hair.

Me, I don't use HHT. I shave with the blade, sometimes, I test it on my arm or hand hair...(If I have any left....)