What kind of tape?

OK, so I see alot of people use tape on the spine when honing. What I'm intrested in is what kind of tape do you use, Scotch, electrical, masking, painters, etc.? Just wondering.

The tape that I have used and have seen others use is black electrical tape. Depending on the hone, it will break down and start to come off on the stone. Keep an eye on it for wear and if you are in doubt, replace it.

Have fun!

-rob
:tu

Plastic Electrical tape not the cloth stuff :nono: Just to clarify the obvious.......

Ya know I've been to Lowes and Home depot many times and the have a million types of electrical tape there. They have plastic and rubber and cloth and foam and some others and they all say how wide it is and how long it is but none say how thick it is. For us the thickness really matters especially if you start layering the tape and deal with double bevels.

Ah, that's what I forgot, thickness. I know scotch tape is pretty thin, electrical seems to be on the thicker side. So if you have a double duc...... would you use duct tape. Just thought I would try and make a funny.

I don't mean to rain on the spine-tapers parade, but although I can understand wanting to keep a decorated spine nice, by taping it, you are not letting the blade get honed down at the correct angle!

If you picture what's going on, you'll see why----as we know, straights are made to be sharpened with the spine and edge touching the stone/strop at the same time. This "sets" the correct angle. Since the UNTAPED spine and cutting edge will wear down from honing at the same rate (in a perfect world), the honing angle remains the same throughout the razors useful life.

By TAPING the spine, it doesn't wear down, only the edge does. So THIS changes the sharpening geometry so that the bevel gets wider and wider as the edge wears over time, but keeping the spine at the same thickness since it's taped.

To clarify, imagine what the cutting angle would look like if the spine was not worn down at all, but the edge was worn down to, say, half the blade width. It makes it a LOT more "blunt"----not what we want to shave with.

So to sum up, I'm a "form follows function" type of guy, so I bought the Dove Tortoise, which doesn't have a spine that needs to be protected and I can hone it all I need to without worrying about decoration. I hope this makes sense to anyone who was wondering.

I like colored vinyl electrical tape. It feels thinner than the black, holds up well, and doesn't leave a sticky residue.
However any electrical tape will do.
Duct tape and scotch tape are not good choices, and I assume masking tape would work, but I'm not about to try on one of my razors.

And as far as blade geometry goes, the extra 1/2 degree the tape adds is not going to hurt the blade's performance.
Yes the spine is protected, and doesn't wear at the same rate, but the type of wear you are talking about is minimal.
It would take decades of honing before any difference would be noticed, and that's if you only have 1 razor.
You will put much more wear on a blade removing a single small chip than you will with 5 years worth of regular wear/maintenance.

Hey, I just wanted to know what kind of tape people were using, not to get into a discussion on " to use or not to use tape" there are other threads on that. The duct tape comment was just a joke and I don't think that would be a good idea to use anyways.

Plastic electrical tape is typically .007" (or seven thousanths or 7 mils) thick. The package for the roll I most recently bought specified the thickness.

:HJ

The spine and the edge do not hone at the same rate anyway, so the argument for maintaining the exact bevel angle that was put on at the factory is a moot point. And I can say with total certainty that any bevel angle that is between approx. 14 degrees and 20 degrees will shave your face just fine; with most razors being around 16 degrees, there is no worry that a layer of tape is doing anything negative.

Besides, in normal use with a rotation of razors, it would take more than one man's lifetime to hone off enough material to make a razor's performance suffer.

Continue with original poster's intent...

7 mil thickness electrical tape. Brand doesn't matter.

Thank you Russel

Now back to one other tip, if you get that black residue on the spine, a piece of TP with just a touch of WD-40 will wipe it right off.... Just make sure you wipe off the WD-40 before continuing on to your hone...

I don't recommend scotch tape. I thought it would be thinner than electrical tape so I tried it once. Once. It was a real pain to take off; needed a solvent to remove all the residue. Black tape just peels right off.