Originally Posted by
CamaroZ28
I've been honing quite a bit lately and have had time to think about the process. After trying taping the spine on a razor I noticed that the tape had started to wear as expected. Having some machining experience that got the wheels turning. A few thousandths of an inch can make a difference when centering a part in a lathe for example. Same with tightening the jaws of the lathe chuck, you can see how many thousandths of an inch it moves on a dial indicator in relation to how tight it is.
With all this in mind I got to wondering about the changes in thickness of the tape. Theoretically replacing worn tape with new would mean the angle of the spine would change in relation to the edge of the blade. Whereas leaving the spine un-taped means that the wear of the spine would remain constant in relation to the edge.
I don't consider myself an expert at honing and typically fall into the no tape camp with few exceptions. Like many theoretical ideas the real question is does it really matter in the long run? What does everyone think?