Thread: Taping the spine

Today I shaved with an edge from my 1200-grit diamond hone. Ouch.

It wasn't on purpose. Last night I was honing up my Dubl Duck Special from rgdominguez, and I started as usual, taping the spine and working out the chips and corrosion to set a fresh bevel.

Usually, I leave the tape on until I'm finished honing, but this time I decided to take it off before going to the Belgians. I did a few strokes on the DMT sans tape to flatten out any difference in angle the tape might have caused. Then I did my usual blue/slurry, blue no slurry, coticule progression.

The shave this morning was dreadful. The razor was cleaning off stubble, but it felt really rough, like a steak knife, almost. I got through the first pass and then switched to the razor I'd been using earlier in the week. Ah, nice and smooth. Boy, did that rubbing alcohol sting.

Later I looked at the edge under my microscope--no wonder it was painful. I must not have done enough no-tape strokes to flatten the bevel out, because it didn't look like the Belgians had hit the edge at all--just the upper part of the bevel. I didn't see a double bevel, per se, but the edge clearly hadn't been polished.

One question that comes up a lot is whether taping the spine of a razor throws off the angle of the bevel, leading to problems later when rehoning without the tape.

With the Norton, my experience convinced me that taping the spine didn't make it harder to do touchups later without the tape. I think this may be because the Norton cuts quickly. Any slight difference in the angle is removed by a few strokes.

This doesn't seem to be the case with the DMT/Belgian hone progression that I'm using now. Before this latest experience, I'd done some experiments where I taped the spine on an eBay razor, then set the bevel as I usually do on my 1200-grit DMT. If I remove the tape at this stage, before going to the Belgian blue, the razor doesn't want to get sharp. Once I did several hundred strokes on the Belgian blue after removing the tape, and the razor didn't seem to get any sharper or smoother.

For you guys who are using the same setup, do you leave the edge taped? Have you had a similar experience?

Surprisingly, the 1200-grit edge didn't give me as much burn and irritation as I would have thought. It's about the same level I would get if I went a little overboard with a coticule edge. Don't look for me to ditch my Belgian blue anytime soon, though.

Josh

It is a rare occasion that I tape a spine at all unless I have significant metal to remove ie, chips cracks or really poor grinding or heavy uneven honing previously. All this confusion about setting bevels and so forth is something I normally don't get as technical as you experts about. I just hone up the razor. Most times with the Norton followed by an Escher because I can rely on it consistently doing 30-50 razors per week.

Have fun.

Lynn

I used to tape the spine all the time and just left it on for everything (including pasted hanging strop) except stropping. Now that my Rad has plateaued I don't worry so much about tape (I will use tape on the Bergischer Lowe - I'm a bit OCD about the gold wash on the spine).

But I've noticed what you are saying, Josh, especially on my JR wedges the first time I honed them. It's one of the reasons I gave up taping so much.

James.

Josh, I believe that one layer of tape increases the angle about 2 - 3 degrees. If a bevel is really established at this higher angle and you use no pressure/weight honing strokes, you will be polishing the upper edge of the bevel and not the shaving edge. I believe that the remedy is that if you start honing with tape on a given razor, use tape throughout the honing process.

Originally Posted by rgdominguez

Josh, I believe that one layer of tape increases the angle about 2 - 3 degrees. If a bevel is really established at this higher angle and you use no pressure/weight honing strokes, you will be polishing the upper edge of the bevel and not the shaving edge. I believe that the remedy is that if you start honing with tape on a given razor, use tape throughout the honing process.

Just here for the nit-picking , since I have no honing experience (nor expertise, save honing of kitchen knives):

For a 5/8" blade, it would take 0.033" of tape to raise the angle by 3 degrees. According to the 3M website, their standard vinyl electrical tape is 7 mils (i.e., 0.007 " thick), leading to an angle of 0.64 degrees. For a 1" blade, that angle drops to 0.4 degrees. I'm assuming the adhesive layer is much thinner than the thickness of the vinyl.

However, your main point (if you start with tape, keep it on throughout honing) makes perfect sense: you'd want constant angle of contact between blade and stone.

Dale

Even a gold washed or other fancy finished razor will get the hone with no tape with me. I shave with them not collect them Makes sense that use tape throughout the sharpening process if you started that way.

PuFF

I'm with Lynn on this one. Unless I have to do some real intensive honing with a 4K or coarser I never tape the spine.

I just started working with tape on some razors, if I have to establish a new bevel... TAPE... After that it all depends on the razor. Sence I like a patina on my steel, I tend to tape the ones with a good patina established. If it's just a work horse with no patena, no tape.

Never Tape

I was going to say that tape cannot change the angle as much but someone already explained it in detail

Anyway - I also tape very very rarely. I also remove the tape as soon as possible (even between sessions, if I am doing several) because I think humidity can creep on the edge of the tape, maybe even under (but this may be a bit paranoid)

When I use the tape, I don't have a routine - sometimes I keep it on the Belgian and sometimes I remove it on the lower grits. But yes, sometimes it may take hundreds of light strokes without much effect on the edge

Cheers
Ivo