Dave, you mentioned stropping untaped after honing a razor with a taped spine and that the edges seemed to deteriorate for you. We've bandied about razor theories based for a long time.

I made a laughably crude illustration some time ago on what happens at the edge level when you tape, then remove tape and either move to a new stone or strop. Basically, the edge is lifted off the stone which can prevent the edge from making contact with the stone. Now, stropping on a hanging strop for example? That's a bit more theory at work. Would the change be as noticeable as it can be when removing tape and moving to another stone in the progression or would the slack inherent in a hanging strop compensate. Your experience makes it sound like, in theory, your edge is not being stropped. If that's the case, in my experience a razor's edge that isn't stropped but is shaved with multiple times craps out quickly; I believe mainly due to micro corrosion.

Razor angle example.pdf

Chris L