Hair popping

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pjackst

Joined
Jun 5, 2014
Messages
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When people say hair-popping sharp, what do they mean?

  • that they can drag the knife across their skin and it shaves the hair?
  • that their edge is so keen that it can tree-top an arm hair (as opposed to just pushing the hair aside, it actually cuts it)?
  • that the edge is so sharp it pops some hair, resulting in pophair (like popcorn)?

Thanks for your feedback!
 
You just touch the edge to hair and it literally pops off under no friction. It is a cool thing to see and the knife has to be very sharp.
 
For me, 'hair-popping' means the clipped hair will 'jump' or 'pop' away from the edge at first contact, with virtually no force exerted. When I see it, it'll often leave hairs laying atop the upward-facing side of the blade. It can happen when shaving at the surface of the skin, or when tree-topping (cutting hair above the surface of the skin). This differs from simple 'shaving', in that shaving sometimes needs a little more pressure to pinch it against the skin, or some angle adjustment, or both, to happen cleanly. A relatively dull edge can still shave somewhat, but it takes a very sharp edge to 'pop' hairs off with virtually no effort.


David
 
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What they said.

Most of the time I have a bald spot on the top of my left forearm from testing.

I've never put hair in a microwave to see if it pops? I'm sure it would smell terrible! LOL
 
Reminds me of the green flash at the moment the sun dips below a marine horizon. That is- super cool, and experienced by a vast minority of the population. I guess my sharpening kit/sharpening abilities have not quite gotten to this follicle-leaping place yet. In this moment, supersteels just started to make a lot more sense to me (once you get to that sweet spot, you prob wanna keep it there as long as possible!).
 
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Rhinoknives1 said:
What they said.

Most of the time I have a bald spot on the top of my left forearm from testing.
Click to expand...

me too (as I somewhat shamefully recall the time I shaved a good portion of the left side of my back with a freshly tuned Tramontina- those things have reach)
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
For me, 'hair-popping' means the clipped hair will 'jump' or 'pop' away from the edge at first contact, with virtually no force exerted. When I see it, it'll often leave hairs laying atop the upward-facing side of the blade. It can happen when shaving at the surface of the skin, or when tree-topping (cutting hair above the surface of the skin). This differs from simple 'shaving', in that shaving sometimes needs a little more pressure to pinch it against the skin, or some angle adjustment, or both, to happen cleanly. A relatively dull edge can still shave somewhat, but it takes a very sharp edge to 'pop' hairs off with virtually no effort.


David
Click to expand...

^ That explains it much better than my attempt! :D


green flash... I have seen one, it was pretty cool
 
To me it means the hair has a popping feeling or sound as it comes free. My Father in Law once did a study using a SEM, a sledge microtome, a razor, and some hair samples. At certain levels of finish (and depending on the hair) the razor begins its cut and once it reaches a given point the hair snaps off with a pop, presumably from wedging. if closely observed by eye, I'd swear sometimes one can see them hop a little. For me the next step up is when the hair, even the thicker stuff, just piles on the edge with no real indication its been touched.
 
Yeahhhh I have no idea. The forearm test patch just kinda started working its way up the arm, then the shoulder- and next thing I know, I had quite a mess and quite an interesting golf-course-lookin' follicular config going on there
 
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