Quote Originally Posted by DaveMartell View Post
Well since starting this thread I've had a chance to hone quite a few razors and just for the sake of learning I decided to tape the spine on most all of them, just to see if there was any effect one way or other, besides the appearance that is.

What I found, without question, is that each and every taped spine razor shaved like crap and what's worse is that they got worse as they were used, almost as if stropping (untaped) was doing nothing at all for them. The most affected was an old near wedge Frederick Reynolds which was absolutely pitiful.

I then decided to reverse the test and rehone without taped spines and once again the test proved 100% in it's results, except this time they all shaved great. The near wedge Frederick Reynolds was the worst to rehone since it had such a large double bevel on it and I was cursing the day I taped it.

Conclusion for me is that taping is stupid and I won't be doing it again anytime soon. I think that even if I had a damascus razor I'd forgo the tape and just use the tool as it was meant to be used.

Anyway, that's just my $0.02 on the matter.

I absolutely positively will bet ya a beer at the next major Razorcon meet up, that I can hone two twin razors one w/tape and one w/o and you will never ever feel the difference in the shave, just so long as I do the honing and the stropping...

There are just way to many variables involved to make a blanket statement one way or the other...