Thread: Honing - Spine Wear

Oh yes, I hear your sighs. Another spine wear question!

My question however does rest in theoretical microns, but in practical evidence. The question being: Who here has been honing and stropping their straight razor(s) without taping the spine, for roughly a decade? If that is you, I am interested in knowing a little more about your honing technique (pressure/speed/stone & grit/frequency) and what the spine looks like today. Worn? Slightly flattened? No wear at all? The main concern being that a worn spine does put a different angle to the edge; is this change of angle significant enough to notice a difference?

Thanks in advance!

Wish I could help you out but I've not been at this hobby for a decade yet. However, I will say that you can pretty much rule out normal stropping as a significant factor in hone wear. By "normal stropping" I mean on linen and leather without abrasives being added to either elements. It may eventually wear any finish, gold or bluing, that has been put on the spine in the case of some razors.

Also taping the spine when stropping is unnecessary regardless of whether you taped the spine or not during honing. There is enough deflection in the strop so you will reach the edge in any event.

I see in you introduction post that you will be receiving you first straight razor from Santa. Just be aware the new current production razors have had a reputation for being hot and miss wrt being truly shave ready from the factory.

Bob

I think Bob as covered the stropping. And i have not been honing for a decade but keep in mind that it will also depend on how many razors someone owns. In therory the bevel set proccess only needs done once. From there if you have to go back to the stone its for a touchup and that shouldnt wear much at all if dont properly.
BTW welcome to the group.

As Bob said, finding someone who does not tape and has 10 years experience will be difficult.

I only know of one and he is no longer a member.

Taping started as a recommendation for newbs just starting to hone. The idea being to prevent excess wear on the spine. Few of us ever went back to no tape. Two or more layers of tape is used to hone blades with difficult geometry.

I would start watching gssixgun's videos on honing. These vids are the best place to start your education.
Use the search box in the upper right corner to find these.

We don't know where you live; there may be a honer near you. Put your town in the avatar. I would guess Amsterdam but there is more than one.

Welcome to the forum.

Another, easier way to find Glen's videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/gssixgun

And, owing to your thread topic, "Tape vs. No Tape" would be the one to watch first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMchDtXzUO4

Heck, he even made one with me showing all the wrong moves to make when first starting out honing your own blades.

In YouTube you will find others doing honing vids. Some do NOT know what they are doing.

Stick with Glen!

Actually I have been honing and shaving for a little over 10 years, mostly without tape. When I do use tape, it’s for geometry, to protect a frameback spine, or plating/decoration. When I use tape for protection it’s 1 mil Kapton. That makes about 1/2 degree steeper angle on razors say 5/8-7/8.

Some of my first razors show light to moderately light hone wear, some flattening of the spine, but I was also learning to hone at the time which accounts for much of that wear. That said, I also rotate razors so I’m not shaving with the same one all the time either. I think what you’re wanting to know is how much wear would you expect to see without tape over say, 10 years. If you already know how to hone and are just maintaining an edge with something like a Naniwa 10k/12k, I don’t think that you’ll see much wear. Especially if you have several razors. I can get 65+ shaves from an edge, so if I had say 6 razors in rotation, I’d only hone them once a year, if that was the goal, so that would be 10 touch ups per razor over 10 years.

If you hone for other people, professionally or not, there’s a compelling case to be made for taping the spine. If someone sends you a new but wonky razor and you need to correct something like spine/edge alignment, a lot of visual wear usually goes along with that and when you send it back the owner may not be thrilled with the appearance of wear. That’s not an insignificant consideration. Most Gold Dollars don’t look too bad until you start straightening the spine and cutting new bevels on badly ground steel, then they look quite worn unless you start engaging in corrective cosmetics. But they do shave.

Another interesting question would be if you’d taped for 10 years how much would the bevel angle increase? About 1 degree for electrical tape, 1/2 degree for 1 mil Kapton, but that’s for one-time honing. Over time the angle will increase more as the edge recedes and the spine stays the same.

Here are some visuals and some numbers to think about when considering tape from a practical and cosmetic standpoint.

TL;DR: 1, enough spine wear to make much of a practical difference in bevel angle will be visually disturbing, and 2, if the spine thickness is constant and the edge wearing, like over a period of 10 years, the bevel angle will increase pretty quickly, like 3 degrees over a 2mm edge wear.

The ‘volunteers’ in this example are two Gold Dollars, a ‘standard’ 66 model and a 208, doing what they’re best at, being test razors. AFAIK, theyre all the same blank and grind. The 66 is a good example of one, straight spine (for a change) and the heel is pretty decent. I have only had this one on a hone enough to see the wear pattern on the spine, but the spine is in almost 100% factory trim. The 208 was a bit wonkier and needed to have the spine flattened and straightened, which resulted in spine wear of about 3/16” (about 4.8mm) width. That would be considered a lot of spine wear and you can see what that much wear looks like, not exactly a beauty queen huh?

But what real difference does it make? Gold Dollars generally have bevel angles of around 19 degrees or a little more. Around 17 degrees +/- a degree is considered normal for most razors. This 66 measured 20.1 degrees, not too unusual for the beefy 66. The 208 after beating the spine into submission measured 19.2, or about 1 degree less. So 3/16” wide spine wear resulted in -1 degree bevel angle. That will help a little, but you can imagine what that spine would look like if it were thinned to make the bevel angle -3 degrees, or 17. The razor will look like it’s worn out, but in reality it would have just reached a normal bevel angle. maybe like an worn old near wedge with the wide spine and bevels.

Now what if I taped that Model 66 and proceeded to wear it down, like over 10 years? Well I’d be mad because I just spent 10 years shaving with a Gold Dollar 66, lol. So how about simulating wear? Suppose the spine doesn’t change and the edge gets narrower by 1 mm. Taped, my beginning bevel angle is 20.1 + 1 degree (for 1 layer electrical tape) call it 21 degrees. A 1 mm reduction in width would mean 22.3 degrees, and a 2mm reduction would mean 23.8 degrees. That’s getting steep and it’s getting steeper faster as the edge wears but the spine does not.

So maybe this post will connect what enough spine wear to change the bevel by 1 degree looks like, and what effect taping will have as the razor wears.

I think Steve and Dave made some very valid points. New honers typically put wat to much pressure and emphasis on the spine. Thos uf us that have been around for a while have seen several posts from new honers that have decided to learn without tape and have stuffed nice new razors. Once you can hone a razor whiteout creating significant tape wear, tape has become optional, as you will not create significant and undo spine wear. There are quite a few people that do the initial creation of the apex with tape and then finish without tape. Also the greatest amount of spine wear comes from creating the apex often referred to as setting the bevel. The higher grit hones, in the hands of an experienced honer, will not create much spine wear especially if they have multiple razors.

Thanks to all for the replies. Perhaps I have not been clear enough on what my question/concern actually is. The concern is whether a worn spine changes the angle of the blade and whether that makes a significant difference in the shave? (I have edited the original post for clarification). My bad. I do appreciate the replies and now have a new YouTube channel to follow!

Steve56 got my drift:

Originally Posted by Steve56

Actually I have been honing and shaving for a little over 10 years, mostly without tape. When I do use tape, it’s for geometry, to protect a frameback spine, or plating/decoration. When I use tape for protection it’s 1 mil Kapton. That makes about 1/2 degree steeper angle on razors say 5/8-7/8.

Some of my first razors show light to moderately light hone wear, some flattening of the spine, but I was also learning to hone at the time which accounts for much of that wear. That said, I also rotate razors so I’m not shaving with the same one all the time either. I think what you’re wanting to know is how much wear would you expect to see without tape over say, 10 years. If you already know how to hone and are just maintaining an edge with something like a Naniwa 10k/12k, I don’t think that you’ll see much wear. Especially if you have several razors. I can get 65+ shaves from an edge, so if I had say 6 razors in rotation, I’d only hone them once a year, if that was the goal, so that would be 10 touch ups per razor over 10 years.

Your full length post(s) contains a lot of information that I am going to read more carefully when I get back tonight. This is exactly what I wanted to know (thanks for reading my mind through my vague post). The picture helps as well. Thanks for the detail.

A question for now: What do the blade angles signify? Is there an ideal blade angle? Or am I opening up the can of subjectivity here? I may have more questions later.