Thread: Honing and stropping question

A hone is hard and presumably flat. When you strop, you are using a material that has some flexibility like balsa wood, cloth or leather. While tape does change the apex angle of the edge slightly when honing, the flexibility of the stropping material is generally sufficient to accommodate the slight change in angle when stropping.

I use basswood for my my 0.25 micron CBN pasted strop. Basswood is less flexible than balsa, so in that case, it might be helpful to use tape if the razor was honed with tape. For leather and fabric strops, there is no need to be concerned.