Two pieces of electrical tape?

Have you ever tried two pieces of electrical tape on top of each other to hone an edge on a frisky razor?

I recently was having a problem putting an edge towards the heel of the blade. I laid out the razor flat on some granite. I noticed that the way the spine was tapered that part of the blade barely made contact on the hone.

I was reading up on regular knife sharpening a couple months ago and I came across some information where depending on the type of blade or bevel you want to achieve [on big ass hunting knifes] you use your thumb (or finger, I don't remember) to raise the back of the knife's spine while you hone. It's height off the hone determines the bevel and also achieves proper contact (knife to hone).

It hit me, yes of course you can't get a thumb under there [razor] but you can raise the height of the spine by adding (more) electrical tape. It worked great, and in just a few passes I had a great shave ready bevel on it. Is there something wrong in doing this that I might regret down the road?

:hmmm:

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Originally Posted by bth88

Have you ever tried two pieces of electrical tape on top of each other to hone an edge on a frisky razor?
:hmmm:

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No, I have never had the need to do this.

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Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

No, I have never had the need to do this.

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Sounds good, have you ever had a hard to hone blade like I describe?

Yes many blades have a rounded heal as you describe. This is especially true of blades that have a smile. To hone this type of blade most experienced members use a rolling hone stroke and/or a 45 degree angle when honing. Curved blades are also easier to hone on narrow hones because only a small portion of the blade is comming in contact with the hone at one time. If you have stones that are thick enough you can use the side of them as a very narrow hone for curved blades/heals. I do not see how adding 2 pieces of electric tape would cause the curved heal to make better contact with the hone, but if it works for you then I don't really think that you will damage anything by doing this. Have fun.

Can't say I see how this would work either. I do use my thumb and forefinger to set the height of knife spines and therefore the bevel angle but that's completely different to a razor. I'm not big on swapping hands so I can't just use my thumb with knives.

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Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

Yes many blades have a rounded heal as you describe. This is especially true of blades that have a smile. To hone this type of blade most experienced members use a rolling hone stroke and/or a 45 degree angle when honing. Curved blades are also easier to hone on narrow hones because only a small portion of the blade is coming in contact with the hone at one time. If you have stones that are thick enough you can use the side of them as a very narrow hone for curved blades/heals. I do not see how adding 2 pieces of electric tape would cause the curved heal to make better contact with the hone, but if it works for you then I don't really think that you will damage anything by doing this. Have fun.

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I understand exactly what you're describing but this was not that type of issue. Check this out below.

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Originally Posted by bth88

I recently was having a problem putting an edge towards the heel of the blade. I laid out the razor flat on some granite. I noticed that the way the spine was tapered that part of the blade barely made contact on the hone.

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I laid it out flat and it was an issue with the spine.

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I do not see how adding 2 pieces of electric tape would cause the curved heal to make better contact with the hone, but if it works for you then I don't really think that you will damage anything by doing this. Have fun.

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I was not trying to get the curved heal to make contact in the way you where thinking. The blade for about a little less than a 1/2" forward of the heel was not making contact with the hone. Thank you for all your input.

I was wondering what some of the other guys thoughts were on this?

:hmmm:

FWIW, I did see a post on another forum where Bill Ellis suggested two layers of tape for honing difficult wedges - changes the angle and keeps a little more metal off the hone.

Jordan

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Originally Posted by jnich67

FWIW, I did see a post on another forum where Bill Ellis suggested two layers of tape for honing difficult wedges - changes the angle and keeps a little more metal off the hone.

Jordan

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That's interesting, Bill is a knife guy as well

:hmmm:

I guess that I really did not take the time to really understand what you were saying in your post before responding; sorry about that. No I have never had a razor that had a spine that did not make contact with the hone in one area like you describe. Like I said before if the double tape method works for you then I don't see why it would damage anything other than slightly changing the angle of the bevel.

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Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

To hone this type of blade most experienced members use a rolling hone stroke and/or a 45 degree angle when honing.

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Heavyduty, I use a 45 degree angle for wedges because Lynn said it worked, and it does. But how does the 45 degree thing work for a smiler? If the heel and toe don't touch when the razor lays flat, the only technique that compensates for that is the rolling hone stroke, no? I have a couple of smilers that if I'm going to get the toe and heel to contact the hone I practically have to lift the razor. As I don't feel much control honing while doing wheelies and endos, I've resigned myself to dull heels and toes on these.

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Originally Posted by dylandog

Heavyduty, I use a 45 degree angle for wedges because Lynn said it worked, and it does. But how does the 45 degree thing work for a smiler? If the heel and toe don't touch when the razor lays flat, the only technique that compensates for that is the rolling hone stroke, no? I have a couple of smilers that if I'm going to get the toe and heel to contact the hone I practically have to lift the razor. As I don't feel much control honing while doing wheelies and endos, I've resigned myself to dull heels and toes on these.

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I agree with your statement about the control issue [heel, toe, smiles], and I'll add as a noobe at honing a big worry of mine is an uneven bevel (starting a second overlapping) as a result. I have a Boker 7/8 smile that looks like a daunting task is ahead of me to get that one shave ready. I keep putting that one off until I get a better with my control and my honing in general.

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Originally Posted by dylandog

Heavyduty, I use a 45 degree angle for wedges because Lynn said it worked, and it does. But how does the 45 degree thing work for a smiler? If the heel and toe don't touch when the razor lays flat, the only technique that compensates for that is the rolling hone stroke, no? I have a couple of smilers that if I'm going to get the toe and heel to contact the hone I practically have to lift the razor. As I don't feel much control honing while doing wheelies and endos, I've resigned myself to dull heels and toes on these.

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I am still developing my technique for honing smiling razors on wide stones so I do not consider myself an expert on this particular subject be any means. So far I have found that using a 45 degree AND rolling hone stroke has given me the best results with smiling blades. When I talked to Randy he told me that when he hones smiling razors on a wide stone he hones at a 45 degree angle with an X pattern, but he also keeps the toe in the air throughout the stroke. This ensures that the heal will come in contact with hone at the beginning of the stroke. The X pattern will ensure that the toe of the blade makes contact with the hone at the end of the stroke. Obviously the sides of your hone must be rounded off or chanfered so that you do not damage your edge while using this technique. With a narrow stone you will not need to lift the toe in the air because only a small portion of the blade will be in contact with the hone at any given time. I hope that this somewhat answers your question.

This is very helpful heavyduty.

I'll give those smilies another go. Popping a wheelie on a hone just seemed so unnatural.

I did try using the rolling hone method on a one-inch wide Escher I have, but the results were only so-so. I think I put too much weight on the relatively small area of contact between hone and blade – always a temptation for me with narrow hones.

bump.....Bump

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Originally Posted by dylandog

This is very helpful heavyduty.

I'll give those smilies another go. Popping a wheelie on a hone just seemed so unnatural.

I did try using the rolling hone method on a one-inch wide Escher I have, but the results were only so-so. I think I put too much weight on the relatively small area of contact between hone and blade – always a temptation for me with narrow hones.

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Your correct on the pressure thing, when using a narrow hone I have to be very aware of the amount of pressure I use since it is distributed over a much smaller area.

The other issue to avoid when using a narrow hone is creating gully/ridges on the bevel from only honing one area of the blade. For example.... if you are trying to get the heel sharp then I do one stroke, straight across the hone, focusing on the heel portion and then follow that with one or two X pattern full length honing strokes.
However, if I perform 2 or more straight across heel focused strokes then I end up with a gully/ridge on the edge.

Just my two cents,

This is a great point, Randy. I've really screwed up some bevels this way. It gets worse if you use pressure.... :gth

Once or twice I used pressure and did some back and forth strokes just on the heel of a razor while using the 1" wide side of my Norton 1K. Yeah. Not a good idea.

Josh

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Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

I am still developing my technique for honing smiling razors on wide stones so I do not consider myself an expert on this particular subject be any means. So far I have found that using a 45 degree AND rolling hone stroke has given me the best results with smiling blades. When I talked to Randy he told me that when he hones smiling razors on a wide stone he hones at a 45 degree angle with an X pattern, but he also keeps the toe in the air throughout the stroke. This ensures that the heal will come in contact with hone at the beginning of the stroke. The X pattern will ensure that the toe of the blade makes contact with the hone at the end of the stroke. Obviously the sides of your hone must be rounded off or chanfered so that you do not damage your edge while using this technique. With a narrow stone you will not need to lift the toe in the air because only a small portion of the blade will be in contact with the hone at any given time. I hope that this somewhat answers your question.

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Just a point of clarification.... I focus the pressure on that portion of the blade that is coming off the bottom of the hone when I am using an X pattern honing stroke. I do not deliberately lift the point/toe of the blade at any time. It is almost like Xmans rolling stroke where he is rolling the point of contact but I combine that with an X pattern stroke.

Just don't want anyone thinking that I lift the point/toe of the blade 1 inch off the hone at any time.