What's the correct way to do the HHT?
- Thread starter Fletch
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The HHT is much more than a parlor trick. (I thought we'd moved past that particular meme, to be honest) I can draw a distinct correlation between blades that shave well, and pass the HHT test. The better the blade pass the HHT, the better it shaves, bar none. I've never had a razor that failed the HHT test that shaved well, regardless of who did the honing or on what stones.
But, as mentioned, the testing must be done in a consistent fashion, with a consistent sample to have much meaning. Hair thickness plays a role, though I find a convergence as the keenness improves; it matters less and less.
But, as mentioned, the testing must be done in a consistent fashion, with a consistent sample to have much meaning. Hair thickness plays a role, though I find a convergence as the keenness improves; it matters less and less.
I agree, and it's disconcerting to see so much dismissal for the HHT when someone new asks why their razor isn't passing the test, with the quick reply "The HHT is irrelevant, it only matters how it shaves". I then imagine someone incorrectly honing or stropping and then going straight to a shave test, which is a disservice in my opinion.
+2
Its not about making or forcing the hair to cut (i.e. a parlor trick), its seeing if the hair cuts under standardized conditions.
You do need to be familiar with your hair and how it responds to different edges, if your hair works with it at all. I find it to be a very useful test, some don't. You'll have to decide for yourself. But I agree with both above that its not smart to dismiss a potentially useful tool out of hand.
When I got my first batch of "shave-ready" straights (trade with a local guy), the only one that shaved worth a damn was the only one that passed a HHT, so it helped me out from the start.
What test do you use, Bill?
And here comes Telly, stirring the pot...
You want me to say something like, "any test will work just as well", huh? I won't do it... I won't do it... I won't do it.
If I could get the HHT to work I would use it but I have never been able to. Maybe its my hair. Dick in Germany sells horsehair and I've toying with the idea of experimenting with it to see if it could become a standard for the HHT. Until I do that, I will continue testing my razors by shaving with them and going back to the hones if I'm not satisfied.
As a beginner I have found the HHT frustrating but useful. For me it is a good predictor of whether the blade will shave well or not, but not a perfect predictor. If I'm honing a blade and I can't get it to pop hairs along its length it will not shave well. If it does pop hairs along its length it will usually shave well. That is useful information for me, as is the ability to discern differences in fairly small increments along the edge.
I cannot get the thumb pad test to tell me anything, I think I don't have enough nerves in my thumb or my thumb skin is too tough. I cannot shave my arm hairs reliably and my chest hair is just fine as it is thank you. The only other test that works is the thumb nail test, but that is only useful early in the bevel setting stage.
But getting the HHT to work reliably has been difficult. It has been more difficult than learning to shave with a straight or hone. This is what I did to make it more reproducible.
The hair: My hair is too fine, too short and too scarce. My daughter's is too fine, my son's is too wavy and the dog runs away when she sees me coming at her with scissors. For a while I used badger from a badly shedding silvertip, but it is pretty stiff and so a bit too easy to cut. I got a long hank of lovely hair from my daughter's hair dresser. I was collecting hair from her floor, she asked me why, we had a discussion (she used to test the barbers in town for the organization that does that sort of thine, said no one tests shaving proficiency anymore cause no one gives straight shaves). She had a closet of baggies of hair that she collects from clients who are having her cut their long tresses. She uses them to test hair dyes on different hair types before using them on a client. So I got enough hair to last me a lifetime. It is long, black and straight and medium weight. A good standard. This helps with consistency, although there is some variation within the sample.
My technique: I was not having luck getting hair to respond consistently, so I started using a new DE blade or SE blade to calibrate my technique. Since a new SE is enviably sharp and consistent, it gave me a gold standard to calibrate my technique and to calibrate an individual hair. Even now with my standard source of hair, I'll get an individual hair that is odd, and I can use an SE blade to tell me if it is out of my normal range of response. If the hair pops on the SE blade within the range of my normal, then I can better interpret its behavior on my own edges. The hairs are ten inches long so there is plenty to use to calibrate and test. Also sometimes I'll drop the hair and lose track of which end is the root, the SE blade will quickly tell me which end to hold it by.
These tricks have helped me get the HHT to work as a reliable, although not perfect, indicator. I have yet to get any blade above the hair popping stage, which seems beyond the pale. Commercial SE or DE blades don't go higher either, which either means my technique is still primitive or those who report higher HHT tests are using blades that exceed commercial blades in sharpness, a lovely goal to work towards in my sharpening technique. No other test I've read about gives me the information the HHT does and so it is useful despite its drawbacks.
I cannot get the thumb pad test to tell me anything, I think I don't have enough nerves in my thumb or my thumb skin is too tough. I cannot shave my arm hairs reliably and my chest hair is just fine as it is thank you. The only other test that works is the thumb nail test, but that is only useful early in the bevel setting stage.
But getting the HHT to work reliably has been difficult. It has been more difficult than learning to shave with a straight or hone. This is what I did to make it more reproducible.
The hair: My hair is too fine, too short and too scarce. My daughter's is too fine, my son's is too wavy and the dog runs away when she sees me coming at her with scissors. For a while I used badger from a badly shedding silvertip, but it is pretty stiff and so a bit too easy to cut. I got a long hank of lovely hair from my daughter's hair dresser. I was collecting hair from her floor, she asked me why, we had a discussion (she used to test the barbers in town for the organization that does that sort of thine, said no one tests shaving proficiency anymore cause no one gives straight shaves). She had a closet of baggies of hair that she collects from clients who are having her cut their long tresses. She uses them to test hair dyes on different hair types before using them on a client. So I got enough hair to last me a lifetime. It is long, black and straight and medium weight. A good standard. This helps with consistency, although there is some variation within the sample.
My technique: I was not having luck getting hair to respond consistently, so I started using a new DE blade or SE blade to calibrate my technique. Since a new SE is enviably sharp and consistent, it gave me a gold standard to calibrate my technique and to calibrate an individual hair. Even now with my standard source of hair, I'll get an individual hair that is odd, and I can use an SE blade to tell me if it is out of my normal range of response. If the hair pops on the SE blade within the range of my normal, then I can better interpret its behavior on my own edges. The hairs are ten inches long so there is plenty to use to calibrate and test. Also sometimes I'll drop the hair and lose track of which end is the root, the SE blade will quickly tell me which end to hold it by.
These tricks have helped me get the HHT to work as a reliable, although not perfect, indicator. I have yet to get any blade above the hair popping stage, which seems beyond the pale. Commercial SE or DE blades don't go higher either, which either means my technique is still primitive or those who report higher HHT tests are using blades that exceed commercial blades in sharpness, a lovely goal to work towards in my sharpening technique. No other test I've read about gives me the information the HHT does and so it is useful despite its drawbacks.
I really need to talk to my sister-in-law (who runs a salon and is a journeyman hair dresser) to save me a nice consistent sample like this.
I've also thought of trying the HHT on my favourite DE blades to see how it acts so I have something to shoot for with my straight honing.
Excellent post!
The sample I use comes from my daughter's head, it is on what I would call the fine side. I collected a lock (bribery came in here) and glued it into a knot with the root end out. I usually try to choose hair that appears slightly thicker than its peers, with the result that I'm left with finer and finer hairs in the knot, which makes passing the HHT more and more challenging.
I thought I would try a comparison between a new DE blade and one of my straights, (don't know why I haven't thought to try that before now...) and I too couldn't get the hair to fall silently from the DE, I think that the blade is much too thin to absorb the sound. Same hair on a straight falls silently, but less reliably. So I would classify the straight as having a HHT5, but the DE, though louder, seemed to cut it more reliably, and with less hair on the cut side than the straight blade was capable of doing.
I'd say I can get my straights pretty close, but not quite, as sharp as a DE, though the values I would assign to the HHT are slightly different. I'm not sure I'd want to shave with a blade as sharp as a DE, i didn't enjoy using a shavette style blade as I found my technique wasn't up to snuff to lead to an enjoyable shave. I did find that using a Syderco UF with lather on it gave me edges that I would swear were just as sharp as a DE blade, but I've sold those on now so i can't even go back to test again.
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And here comes Telly, stirring the pot...
You want me to say something like, "any test will work just as well", huh? I won't do it... I won't do it... I won't do it.
I've spoken to you about your honing techniques but I never asked you about how you test the edge. I was hoping for a little insight. That's all.
I really don't use the HHT on my razors. But, to be fair, I can't say that it doesn't have any merit because. Like I said, I don't do it. And it's probably because I haven't needed to use it. The one point I liked about explanations so far is what Brownbear said;I've spoken to you about your honing techniques but I never asked you about how you test the edge. I was hoping for a little insight. That's all.
I could see the benefit in that. However, even if you find the quarter inch long troubled area along the edge, you will still have to hone/strop the entire edge again to fix it... no? And by just shaving with the troublesome razor, it will be telling when you are using it. Which means... that you still have to hone/strop the entire edge again, as well.
However, rather than poo poo or agree with any endorsements of the process, the original question was how to do it, not why. So I apologize for creating a tangent. I have enjoyed reading the "how to" posts a lot so far. I hope they continue.
I love opinions and you sure have some Bill
- Thread starter
- #34
Here's the strangest thing I've found so far. As of right now I have 4 razors. A G.Johnson from Sheffield England, a Gold Monkey, a loaner from Larry, and an Ern (I just got my Ern today and will be shaving with it later). Of the 4 I have one that passes the HHT and for the most part has been my go to razor. Now my test has always been with my wife's hair as it's easy to find for me. The ONLY ONE that passes that test and I mean no matter how I go about doing it.... Once that hair comes in contact with the edge and there is the tiniest bit of pressure exerted against it, *ping* the hair pops off. That razor is the cheap-o Gold Monkey. To date that $20 razor with God knows what steel from China pops any hair in comes in contact with, using basically zero effort.
Now I'm still fairly new to wet shaving and to me all straights pull a bit compared to a DE. So I can't really gauge what is and isn't a super great edge. I'll see how the Ern shaves but I'm almost to the point where I want to send all my razors (with the exception of my Gold Monkey) to a honemeister and see if any of them actually shave smoother than the cheapest razor I have.
I've tried the TPT on all them and they all feel "sticky" so I've come to the conclusion that I basically have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to determining how good an edge is. To me the HHT seems like it should be the most viable test. I mean when a hair comes in contact with the edge and you keep applying pressure and it pops off that part of the hair..... To me that is pretty damn sharp. There aren't a lot of things that are capable of just popping off hairs anytime it comes in contact with it.
Now I'm still fairly new to wet shaving and to me all straights pull a bit compared to a DE. So I can't really gauge what is and isn't a super great edge. I'll see how the Ern shaves but I'm almost to the point where I want to send all my razors (with the exception of my Gold Monkey) to a honemeister and see if any of them actually shave smoother than the cheapest razor I have.
I've tried the TPT on all them and they all feel "sticky" so I've come to the conclusion that I basically have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to determining how good an edge is. To me the HHT seems like it should be the most viable test. I mean when a hair comes in contact with the edge and you keep applying pressure and it pops off that part of the hair..... To me that is pretty damn sharp. There aren't a lot of things that are capable of just popping off hairs anytime it comes in contact with it.
- Thread starter
- #35
Okay shaved with the Ern, didn't pass the HHT however. FANTASTIC shave!! Felt great the whole time using it, by far gave me the least amount of trouble shaving ATG on my trouble spot (which is basically my chin) and aside from that spot a BBS shave overall. Maybe the problem I'm having with my other 2 (the Sheffield and my loaner from Larry) are that they're 5/8 while the Monkey and Ern are bot 6/8. Maybe a narrower razor just doesn't work for me??
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