Thread: Taping

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Boy you kicked a hornet's nest Steve. For some reason this particular issue boils the blood of some. I think it weaves back and forth over the border of overthinking. I would venture to say that you and I along with most other people will never see a time where it becomes that critical for geometric reasons. I see no reason not to tape except in very rare instances. A razor that is this close to exceeding the geometric limits by adding tape is usually either worn out or not ground well in the first place.

EDIT: of course now I'm kicking the hornet's nest along with you.

Yeah, I keep stumbling into those hornets nests, they should paint em so I could avoid kicking them

I know that it's best to tape a spine, I use kapton because i like that it's thin so feels to me like I'm as close as possible to no tape but still protecting the spine.

My question was really, that an Ark cuts very slowly so would not taping make any spine wear to speak of, and that none of the Coticliule stuff I have watched shows any taping.

There is a site, coticule.be I believe that shows two Coticule honing methods, the site is by Bart Torfs I think.

The first method is called Unicot and no tape is used until a layer of electrical tape to finish, causing a micro bevel.
The second method is called Dulicot and uses no tape at all.

It made me wonder whether tape was needed with a Coticule. I'm not saying I won't tape or that it is unnecessary, just on a quest to gain a bit more knowledge.

I think Outback and Tristan explained it best.

Well since the spine and the edge are made of the same thing the stone will affect them both the same way. The slower the stone the less effect it has but the "slowness" of it also means that to have an appreciable effect you have to use more laps to affect the desired results.
Different people have different viewpoints. I personally always take the spine.

On here is an experiment I did years ago to measure the "Geometry" factor that so many claim
You know the one about the Spine and the Edge wearing at the same time, the math showed that not even my great great grand kids would be dealing with more than a 1° change
Keep in mind eBay razors show that to be bogus, there are 100's of 1000's of spine worn crap on there to dispute that hypothesis
There were also some hardness experiments done by Josh Earl back in 07 that showed that the Spine and Edge are NOT equal hardness, especially the older the razor.. The spines are softer

Fact: Of the 10's of 1000's of razors that have crossed my hones I have never had to correct for "Not enough spine wear" not once ever

There are two reasons to tape

#1. Preserve the spine, simple use tape until you understand the aspect of torque and don't put wear on the tape, plus if you are only honing your razors you rarely have to reset a bevel anyway so pretty much a moot point


#2 Correct the bad wear from a past hamhanded honing,, You can decide here to have a over sized out of geometry edge or use tape to correct to a tiny even bevel
We did measurements on many razors back in 08 and found them to be shaving at angles as low as 12° and as high as 23° so you have quite a bit of leeway from the Factory standard of 16-17°


Basically if you know how to hone it just makes no difference


ps: Taping for spine wear math per Glen

0-1mm Spine wear = 1 layer of 3M 700
1mm-2mm Spine wear = 2 layers
2mm and higher = Start with three layers and use a MMT to see the bevel angle easily, then comes the decisions
Add more tape
Re-Grind
Toss the damn thing

Originally Posted by gssixgun

There were also some hardness experiments done by Josh Earl back in 07 that showed that the Spine and Edge are NOT equal hardness, especially the older the razor.. The spines are softer

I had this in mind the entire time, is there any place to read up on that?
I knew it was done and I knew the conclusion, but didn't remember who did it or when


You know what else I find interesting?
Not only the wear on the razor, but also the wear on the stone that occurs with people in the past (people only using one and the same stone for touch ups their entire lives)

I know people that inherited razors with spine wear, but their Coticule also showed wear and was hollowed out; which pretty much evens things out, sort of.
Except that you're still left with the spine wear. Maybe if their stone didn't hollow out it would make things worse or more difficult to work.

I echo others when I say it all doesn't change much of anything and it doesn't really matter in practice. Just don't ruin any razors.
I use tape to fix spine wear and create micro-bevels. Easy, fast, almost foolproof.

I wish I had used tape when I started honing. I still beat myself up for not doing so.
It would have saved me a lot of money, time and frustration.
I don't always use tape, but it always solves problems when they occur or prevents them from happening.

Tristen

If you look at Josh's posts and threads you should be able to find it,,

Keeping in mind there were two crashes since that time one of which I know lost my "Shave Den" thread which is why there is one called AtC (After the Crash) LMAO

Boy this is a lot more civil than some of the other threads I have read on the topic...so far at least. I never understood why this subject caused such a rowe. From what I've seen the math just doesn't support it making very much difference and yet people really get all in a lather over it.

Or perhaps the bevel change constituency just hasn't chimed in yet.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Boy this is a lot more civil than some of the other threads I have read on the topic...so far at least. I never understood why this subject caused such a rowe. From what I've seen the math just doesn't support it making very much difference and yet people really get all in a lather over it.

Or perhaps the bevel change constituency just hasn't chimed in yet.

Or perhaps we are all nice civilized guys.

The following is all OPINION, naturally...

I think there are definitely some great uses for tape. If a razors spine is wearing faster than the edge due to differing hardness/materials (brass frameback for example) intermittent taping is a good idea. If a spine is too thick or thin, taping the spine or edge to bring the bevel angle back into an acceptable range is also a good idea. But outside of these scenarios I don't think tape is necessary. Yes, spine wear is kind of ugly, especially on something like a wedge, but razors are literally designed to wear away in a controlled fashion dictated to by their geometry. Yes they won't wear away perfectly, taping won't change the angle that much over time anyway, the pro-tape-all-the-time arguments are factually fine. I guess the only thing left is that people like a nice shiny razor with a teeny tiny line of hone wear, seems a bit daft to me however.

Gets me thinking of Jarrod's convex hone gig over at TSS. The price you pay for that concave, keener edge bevel geometry is some scratching behind the bevel on the razor, seems like a good tradeoff to me.

On the Star Spangled Banner side of the Atlantic Ocean, it seems like tape is a 'thing' because people are honing all the time, stone collections like libraries, so some are hitting their razors waaayyy more than reason demands. A razor ideally has it's bevel set once, and can be maintained with a good fine natural stone and stropping, if you look into how they traditionally maintained blades in Europe it's more pasted strop, occasional x strokes on a coticule type territory, a razor well looked after isn't going to see a lot of wear to the spine or edge in that situation and will shave just fine.

I think taping is also a symptom of straight shaving becoming more a 'hobby' than anything else. You have a favorite razor, you have a whole collection of stones, you want to try new things, chase different, better, sharper, keener edges. Yeah cool, but the cost is going to be wearing away your razor.

Maybe you have a razor with beautiful etching and spinework you want to be able to look at in 20, 30, 40 years time but you also like to hone a lot. I'd suggest putting that razor in a boxframe and getting yourself a blade to shave with.

Tape is fine, I just don't see the point.

Originally Posted by STF

Hi all,

Before i begin, I have read and watched videos that discuss tape vs no tape.

I have always taped the spine while honing.

I have noticed while watching YouTube and reading online (Dulicote method on coticle.be) that when using a Coticule hardly anyone I saw is using tape, in fact the dulicot method doesn't even mention adding tape.

Will a Coti cause spine wear, do I actually need tape with it?

That brings me to my second question, is tape necessary with Arks? They cut so slowly that I can't help but wonder if necessary there either.

I would welcome your opinions.

Any stone or paste and/or strop will cause spine wear.

At what level varies by the abrasive.

If you don't like the wear use tape and if it doesn't make a difference to you don't.

Whats the big deal?

Originally Posted by thp001

...a razor well looked after isn't going to see a lot of wear to the spine or edge in that situation and will shave just fine.

You make some good points and I don't disagree with most of what you say except that there are a lot of examples out there that show that hone wear is a real issue to be concerned with and not recent.
Here is just one example I can show.


Not trying to be argumentative. In the scenario you describe you're absolutely right but would argue that it was not always the case. My guess is this one was probably owned by a barber who used it every day and wore it slap out.