Thread: How Bevel is Affected by Taping

I just finished putting new rotors and pads on my MINI. What have I missed?

Originally Posted by icedog

I just finished putting new rotors and pads on my MINI. What have I missed?

Well, I came up with the perfect solution.

Gilded gold electrical tape!

Wear through your fancy Bismarck gold spine? Don't sweat it, buy a roll of King Midas' golden electrical tape! Slap on some of this. You'll be shiny again in no time!

Well you might have forgotten to put a little grease at the point were the pressure piston meets the back of the break pad. If the car has a break pad warning light, you might have forgotten to re couple the electrics.
It's possible you didn't tighten your wheel nuts. But one thing is for sure, electrical tape will have been of no use to you whatsoever.

Geez - I'm almost reluctant to pop my head up here now. Sorry to have set this off.

Icedog, I think your observations are great and useful and I appreciate the effort put into them. Of course, it's entirely possible that you measured A from the inside of the spine to the edge, but there had to be some guestimate in doing so. If A is treated as the hypotenuse, measurement is less fraught with error as you can measure from the spine flats to the edge without having to guess where the unobservable middle of the spine is.

Also, I think proportionate change in angle might be a better measure than absolute change, but that's a very easy calculation to make from your excellent data.

When we're talking about small angles and marginal changes, measurement error becomes rather important too - how much of the measured change is measurement error? I think you mentioned nearest 1/16 th of an inch? So, if I remember correctly that means 1/32th of an inch error in measurement?

Finally, how good is the assumption of equal hone wear on each side of the razor? Probably it's not that bad, but we are talking small changes here, so it could be worth considering.

Lastly, and this is not a direct go at you, but more a defence of Mparker. And I realise your comments were probably made in the heat of frustration, but.... If the "thank you" system had been implemented 2 years ago (or so) when I joined as opposed to 3 months ago (or so), I can guarantee that Mparker would have hundreds of "thanks" by now, probably most of them from me. He is enormously systematic and knowledgeable and has helped me greatly with his articulate posts over the years.

Just my 2c.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Geez - I'm almost reluctant to pop my head up here now. Sorry to have set this off.

Icedog, I think your observations are great and useful and I appreciate the effort put into them. Of course, it's entirely possible that you measured A from the inside of the spine to the edge, but there had to be some guestimate in doing so. If A is treated as the hypotenuse, measurement is less fraught with error as you can measure from the spine flats to the edge without having to guess where the unobservable middle of the spine is. When A is the hypotenuse, the data points to the same conclusion!

Also, I think proportionate change in angle might be a better measure than absolute change, but that's a very easy calculation to make from your excellent data. But isn't the angle a product of proportion already? My head would explode if I tried to interpret proportionate change in angle to practical usage. That doesn't speak much for my head, does it?

When we're talking about small angles and marginal changes, measurement error becomes rather important too - how much of the measured change is measurement error? I think you mentioned nearest 1/16 th of an inch? So, if I remember correctly that means 1/32th of an inch error in measurement? The error isn't enough to produce any anomalies in the data across 9 razors: The wider the razor width, the less the difference tape makes (which we already knew) and the change in delta corresponding to the change in razor width is consistent. 32nd of an inch error wasn't enough to negate the validity of the data in my opinion!

Finally, how good is the assumption of equal hone wear on each side of the razor? Probably it's not that bad, but we are talking small changes here, so it could be worth considering. If the razor is being taped, there won't be any hone wear

Lastly, and this is not a direct go at you, but more a defence of Mparker. And I realise your comments were probably made in the heat of frustration, but.... If the "thank you" system had been implemented 2 years ago (or so) when I joined as opposed to 3 months ago (or so), I can guarantee that Mparker would have hundreds of "thanks" by now, probably most of them from me. He is enormously systematic and knowledgeable and has helped me greatly with his articulate posts over the years. Wait a minute, you were addressing icedog? In that case I take back everything I just typed

Just my 2c.

James.

I have to say though I agree with icedog's conclusions, even after the corrected data calculations were presented earlier: "I need more big razors"

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I have to say though I agree with icedog's conclusions, even after the corrected data calculations were presented earlier: "I need more big razors"

LOL! I think we can all agree on that.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Geez - I'm almost reluctant to pop my head up here now. Sorry to have set this off.

Icedog, I think your observations are great and useful and I appreciate the effort put into them. Of course, it's entirely possible that you measured A from the inside of the spine to the edge, but there had to be some guestimate in doing so. If A is treated as the hypotenuse, measurement is less fraught with error as you can measure from the spine flats to the edge without having to guess where the unobservable middle of the spine is.

Also, I think proportionate change in angle might be a better measure than absolute change, but that's a very easy calculation to make from your excellent data.

When we're talking about small angles and marginal changes, measurement error becomes rather important too - how much of the measured change is measurement error? I think you mentioned nearest 1/16 th of an inch? So, if I remember correctly that means 1/32th of an inch error in measurement?

Finally, how good is the assumption of equal hone wear on each side of the razor? Probably it's not that bad, but we are talking small changes here, so it could be worth considering.

Lastly, and this is not a direct go at you, but more a defence of Mparker. And I realise your comments were probably made in the heat of frustration, but.... If the "thank you" system had been implemented 2 years ago (or so) when I joined as opposed to 3 months ago (or so), I can guarantee that Mparker would have hundreds of "thanks" by now, probably most of them from me. He is enormously systematic and knowledgeable and has helped me greatly with his articulate posts over the years.

Just my 2c.

James.

Hey James (and everyone else Mr. Parker especially),

There has been no"heat of frustration". I was hoping that little bit of nonsense was clearly a joke. Mparker said to "pile on the sarcasm" so I did. Regardless of my playfulness, I agree with his point that my calculation is wrong. However, I maintain that it is immaterial and Hoglahoo ran the numbers the other way and proved it. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. My original purpose and conclusion is correct and Mparker agrees with that. The application of one layer of electrical tape is not going to cause any damage to the razor nor will it benefit in any manner other than the asthetics. Now we come to English's issue.

I have to say that in my opinion, his deep hatred for the practice of spine taping is silly. He has said that taping a spine while honing is comparable to kicking back the clock on a car before reselling it. Nonsense. An accurate automotive analogy is the application of tape to protect the spine of a razor during homing is exactly the same as the application of wax to protect a car's finish. I have no intention of selling any of my razors but I may apply tape to a particularly pretty razor. However, if I am buying a razor, I would rather it be in nice, shiny "like new" condition. I have some razors with large unsightly flats on the sides of the spine. I have a very interesting razor from Union Cutlery that has a wonderful art deco design. It has imitation mother of pearl scales with blue liners and a white wedge so the handle is striped. The handle and shank are engraved with the words Bing Blue Steel and the blade is (of course) blued. Sadly the bluing is gone from the badly worn spine yet there is still more than 3/4" left of the blade. I wish the previous owner(s) had protected the spine with tape so this piece of art razor (tool or not) could be brought back yto her original beauty. Why would anyone disagree with any reasonable act to preserve the beauty of anything?

Now allow me to eat some crow. I have a very limited knowledge of mathmatics. Although I was an engineer for a medical device manufacturer for seventeen years, I have no degree. I have never attended college and in high school I failed at math. I do have a military education in some advanced technical stuff but I am largely self taught. I am very good at identifying and solving problems. Regardless of my ignorance I am a very resourceful guy. I have seen the tape arguement repeated and I thought I'd see if it is an issue. I had to think of how to quantify the difference a layer of tape makes but I know nothing of trigonometry. I searched the internet and found what I believed to be a method that would serve my purpose. I admit I am stupid and I chose the wrong F'ing formula. But the people who are smarter than me seem to agree with my findings, even if my method is somewhat erroneous. I teach woodworking, thankfully not math.

Sorry if anyone is hurt by my ignorance. Just please understand my point stands and is proven.

Have fun,

Brad

Originally Posted by icedog

Hey James (and everyone else Mr. Parker especially),

There has been no"heat of frustration". I was hoping that little bit of nonsense was clearly a joke. Mparker said to "pile on the sarcasm" so I did. Regardless of my playfulness, I agree with his point that my calculation is wrong. However, I maintain that it is immaterial and Hoglahoo ran the numbers the other way and proved it. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. My original purpose and conclusion is correct and Mparker agrees with that. The application of one layer of electrical tape is not going to cause any damage to the razor nor will it benefit in any manner other than the asthetics. Now we come to English's issue.

...

Brad

Brad,

Sorry, I didn't pick up on that. But I can be a gormless twit at times . People have said it before, but sometimes it's difficult to pick up on nuances with just the written word. Sorry mate.

James.

Originally Posted by English

My point is if you can not see the true hone ware you can not tell the usage including over honing by previous users. This includes learners and the inexperienced.

As I have said before taping a spine is hiding the truth. I don't say it's done with intentional bad intentions but the fact is the hone ware on a taped spine means the spine and blade ware don't match.

That for me is cheating and the razor becomes untrue.

Last time I said this some members went up the wall trying to justify why I was wrong in my view.

Inexperienced honers, taping spines while they learn how to hone is not the way forward.

The general message I would put out is that taping a spine by an inexperienced honer is likely to corrupt the original geometry of the razor to such an extent that it will probably impact the quality of the shave.

But of course if you buy a razor, you can do what you like with it.

I haven't read this entire thread yet, as I'm doing some catching up. But English, I gotta disagree with you again on this one. There isn't one "perfect" angle that all the manufacturers used, nor is the range of acceptable angles as narrow as you think.

The last razor that I made was a special project for someone. He asked me to intentionally make the spine thicker than normal. The "normal" edge angle range for razors seems to be 15 to 17 degrees. This one was almost 21 degrees. That would be like a razor that had been honed with tape for 100 years of normal use, to make up an impressive-sounding number.

It shaves just fine; he says it feels like a regular wedge. I've also made a couple of razors that were probably down in the 12 to 14 degree range, and they also worked just fine.

I understand that you have strong feelings on this, and that's cool. But watch the rhetoric. Saying things like "honing with tape is hiding the truth" is accusing an awful lot of people of either lying or being unethical. Don't change your position, if that's what you believe, but do be careful what you say about others.

Josh

Originally Posted by icedog

I have to say that in my opinion, his deep hatred for the practice of spine taping is silly. He has said that taping a spine while honing is comparable to kicking back the clock on a car before reselling it. Nonsense. An accurate automotive analogy is the application of tape to protect the spine of a razor during homing is exactly the same as the application of wax to protect a car's finish.

Or possibly changing the car's tires out.

Now that I've finished reading this thread... I wanted to add to what was said about mparker. He'd have at least 100 thank-yous from me, as he's given me a lot to think about over the last year.

Looks like the thread is taking a more positive turn, which is encouraging. I was getting worried there in the middle...

Josh