Not sure how to bring this...
Personally, I test the razor straight off the hone. No stropping on anything. I know that if I can manage to pop a clean, fairly thick, hanging hair, held by its tip, at about 10mm (a bit less than 1/2") of the holding point, the blade is ready to be stropped and test shaved. I have settled for wishful thinking dozens of times, not once did I have a shave that met my standards.
On the other hand, I have never went back to the hones, after achieving a good HHT straight off a Coticule. In that respect, I could actually confidently send out razors without test-shaving. But I don't. Call it a matter of courtesy.
Bottom line: I always aim for that HHT-3 before I'm prepared to strop.
Rico spoke about the honing class during the Coticule weekend. My HHT hair source was nowhere to be found at that moment, but the night before I sharpened Stijn's razor, and those present will testify that it did pass the HHT, before I went stropping. Also Rico's razor popped his hairs, but only closer to the holding point and with more fumbling. If I don't take a thick hair of my little box, it won't work for me either after a Dilucot. So you have to find some hair source that works for you.
Now. There is other advice given in this thread, and I am the last one to say that it is the wrong advice. There are many ways to probe if a razor is ready to go to the strop, and if someone uses other markers than I, that doesn't mean his edges aren't good. It only means that I can't offer further advice, because I haven't got a clue where the edge is, if I have to judge it by standards that I don't know.
But I'll tell you all a secret (only discovered it for the purpose of this typing this post): Take a razor that you know passes the HHT well. Confirm it. Put what's left of the hair aside for a while. Take a glass. Run the razor once, edge down with its own weight over the surface of the glass. Confirm that you no longer can shave arm hair with it. Confirm that the hair no longer shows any response. Strop the razor 60 linen/60 leather. Take your HHT hair and test again. Watch that dropping jaw.
What I'm hoping to illustrate here is threefold:
1. people who say their razors can't pass the HHT after stropping, need to learn how to strop. I know that sounds like a harsh judgment, but I really mean this in the friendliest of ways and with the best possible intent.
2. the HHT post-stropping just serves to find out if you stropped well and to humor yourself.
3. if you hope to get the smoothest possible, effortless shave off a Coticule, make sure that you get the blade as keen off the hone as possible. Find a way to measure that keenness (The HHT straight off the hone works well for me)
and never settle for anything less than the best you ever got.
mikromicke said:
After 40 x-strokes on water, still a zero and after stropping it barely managed to cut halfway through a hair an the heel and toe. I taped the razor and did another 40 x-strokes on just water and tested the razor again. Still 0.
The part I underlined is what sounds not normal to me. I assume that you've read the
HHT-article and that your hair meets the standards of being freshly washed and anything but very thin. If so, then it should have easily popped after you did those 40 laps with a taped spine. A Unicot edge is very good at popping hanging hairs, and not all that critical towards the hair. Hence something is not quite right here, but what?
It could be the bevel. Yes, even if the razor popped hairs after stropping. As long as the bevel is not flattened out, the very edge is not touching the hone, and in a way you are stropping the previous edge you had on that razor. The one that is floating above the surface of the hone while the rest of the bevel still rests on his convex belly.
Of course, if you pre-dulled the razor, and worked on slurry till you could shave arm hair again, (without stropping!) then we know for sure that the bevel faces are straightened out. Without meeting that condition, there's just no way your edge could have gained the keenness to pass the arm hair test.
If you know the bevel is not to blame, then we really must look at your honing stroke, and I strongly recommend to first get Unicot to work. If you can't get Unicot to work, standing on one leg with a stack of Coticules balancing on your head (just a joke to say that it must be a piece of cake), there is no way you'll ever going to get perfect Dilucot results.
Coticule honing is really not that difficult, once a stable honing stroke has been learned. There is nothing particularly difficult in diluting, or in all the other aspects.
Kind regards,
Bart.
: I actually did a quick canvas strop before testing it after the dilucote but I didn't do that after the taped stage. 
