Well, I have honed and shaved with a couple of heavily worn, but not rusty ebay specials. Those razors were and will always be terrible shavers. I believe that those two razors were killed either by inexperience or by people trying to flatten the spine because they couldn’t figure out how to hone a smiling edge. The question for me at the time, was if I honed and shaved with those razors and they shaved well, and then I could remove some steel and the showing of the wear and have pretty razors for cheap. They did not shave well at all. Now on the other hand if you took razors that were expertly maintained and the edge and the spine had worn together, would it effect the shave. It’s indeed in need of an experienced honer, who bought a new razor and maintain it for a significant period of time to answer the skill tested question. I’m not sure to what end though. Are you trying to decide to hone with tape or no tape? Just curious?