Thread: Question About Honing - Covering The Spine Sides

Seriously...............

I hate it when I'm right.

Oy!!

Originally Posted by dudness

So the aesthetic issue is not a problem. I restored over a hundred wigmaker's razors, old crookless razors from the 1800s, Thiers Issard Spartacus vintage razors, Manufrance razors, I guess I shouldn't have bothered... The guys would have complained but I could triumphantly claim that minimal honewear is something normal...
Sorry to troll our chief honemeisters, we've got plenty of talented razormakers here in france that would also disagree with them, but again, as we say in France : la messe est dite.

In other words :

Note for New Guys:

No razor currently manufactured comes with out final grinding or honing wear on the spine. Some wear is more pronounced than others. To tape the razor when honing throws off the geometry of the razor a little, but it is minimal. The question is that over time, is the bevel worn away more as that is where the metal is being removed and does it get steeper over time or make the razor harder to hone or maintain down the road. Does the bevel get wider over time and how is the geometry of the razor changed and what then do you have to do as you wear into the shoulder, etc.

There are some cottage industry razors and many custom razors that do not have hone wear as a result of tape being used when they are honed. In some cases when you re-hone them with a layer of tape you will see an uneven bevel which simply means the grind is off a little. If you did not tape the spine, you would clearly be able to see this reflected in the spine. Normally, the does not effect the shavability of the razor. If the razor has been ground perfectly, everything will be even. But perfect is not only pretty tough to do, but relative.

Many refurbished razors are honed with 2-3 layers of tape or even more when this is done you will not be able to see the amount of hone wear that is hidden. With one layer of tape, the wear on the bevel will reflect the wear on the spine. With multiple layers, it will not. When re-honing this kind of razor it is important to know how much tape was used or you could be in for an adventure in trying to re-sharpen the razor and depending on your skill level, you may be in for an adventure in any case. The alternatives are a rolling X stroke or an extensive amount of metal removal to get the razor to lay flat or close to flat on a stone.

Taping the razors spine and creating a micro bevel is a fairly new thing and was brought to light based on a custom razor maker's desire to protect the spine from wear on Damascus razors. By using the tape the Damascus pattern remains in tact. Taping a razor is not a bad thing in this type of case although some custom makers to not do this.

When a razor is properly honed, the additional wear on the spine and bevel is usually microscopic change and once the razor has been honed, there is almost no further wear on the razor if properly maintained.

The biggest problem with spine wear comes from people new to honing spending an excessive amount of time on a razor during the learning period thus heavily flattening out some razors, sometimes with very uneven wear that is not the same on either side of the razor.

Another use for tape is when a person is trying to repair an edge and it is obvious that the wear from the hone required to do the repair will require significant loss of metal from the razor.

Taping is a personal preference like many other things in our art form. If that is what you want to do, there is nothing wrong with it.

A "Warning Will Robinson" mentality around not taping a razor in general is simply a strong reflection of an individuals personal preference.

Have fun.