Thread: Honing with/without tape... Testing the theories

On the one hand, we see that honing with or without tape will cause a only marginal loss of steel at the shoulder. It is also proposed that over a lifetime this marginal loss will not change the bevel to any significant degree or would keep it from attaining a shavable edge.

On the other hand, you see blades with a great degree of hone wear on the auction sites and elesewhere. So it did occur.

I going to suggest that the blades that had a large degree of hone wear weren't, in fact, poorly honed by their owners at all. If the owners of the razors cared for them as much we aficionados do now, they were not going to treat them in that manner. We see the degree of concern that newbies like myself have towards all aspects of the hobby, including honing, it probably existed back then also.

The wear I see on razors looks like it was done by mechanical means. I think that many of the razors that we see with hone wear were honed by commercial sharpeners looking get an edge as quickly as possible. In urban areas, it might have been the guy in the knife truck or sharpening service that went around sharpening knives, scissors and razors. Slap it on the wheel, let the sparks fly and strop it up. "Thank you Maam, that will be quarter." They would be looking at turnaround to make a profit.

There's no evidence to back this up until somebody wants to try another experiment with a wheel and beater razors. Then, however, I think you'll really be able to recreate the type of hone wear we see on some older blades.

My 2 cents.