Straight Razor Sharp test

There are several very simple tests that you may use on your straight razors to determine whether or not if they are dull or not and whether if you need to rehone them. The obvious best test you can use is the shave test. If your shave is comfortable your razor is sufficient. The only problem with that is its generally alittle inconvienient to shave all the time and hair grows back only so fast. If you’ve honed a blade before, you have probably heard of some of the standard tests such as the hanging hair tests, the thumb nail test, and various others. The challenge with most of those tests is that they generally require some degree of experience with your razors. The test that I will speak about is very easy to perform. The first thing that you should do is look for blunting, and to do that all you will need is a bright light. First you should open the razor and basically look straight down the edge. Blunting is basically flat spots on the edge, where something might have hit the blade and has caused it to flatten out. So when you are looking at the edge of the blade under bright light the light source should reflect back any flat spots. If it’s a nice sharp edge you shouldn’t see any reflected light. Another visual test is to look for a wire edge. Open your razor and with a needle or pin and take your razor and gently push the pin very lightly towards the edge of  the blade. If there is a wire edge you would feel the pin catch against the metal. If there is no wire edge the pin will completely slide off of the edge with no resistance. After you’re done, you can always use a hanging hair test to help verify if your razor is sharp enough.  For more information about straight razor shaving please visit the link in this sentence.