Thread: Newbie honing journal

New to honing myself. I am very interested to know how you can tell if a razor was previously honed with tape or not...I had no idea there was a way of knowing aside from the amount of hone wear on the spine!

Thank you for doing this journal. It is definitely very helpful.

Originally Posted by Attila

New to honing myself. I am very interested to know how you can tell if a razor was previously honed with tape or not...I had no idea there was a way of knowing aside from the amount of hone wear on the spine!

Thank you for doing this journal. It is definitely very helpful.

If it had been honed with tape, the bevel would have been at a slightly steeper angle than if it had been honed without tape. So when I did the sharpie test (mark the bevel with marker pen ink - a sharpie works on metal) without tape and the ink came off evenly in the first couple of laps, I could conclude that the bevel had previously been honed at the same angle and therefore without tape. Had the blade previously been honed with tape, I would have expected a double bevel to form and the ink would have started to come off from the back of the bevel while remaining at the edge.