Razors honed with tape: do you keep them taped when you polish on a chromium oxide...

Many of my razors have been honed with one layer of electrical tape on the spine. Theorectically, it would make sense to keep them taped when polishing on a pasted paddle with either fine diamond paste or chromium oxide to maintain the same edge angle.

When I try this, the tape "drags" on the paddle and scrapes up some of the polishing compound.

When I polish the blades untaped, I seem to get just as good a result. I figure that the the pasted leather paddle has enough "give" to conform to the edge angle.

What do you guys do?

exactly that ,remove the tape
Kind regards Peter

I am curious to hear what other people think. I recently purchased a B&B le grelot that had three layers of tape when honed. I wonder if three layers would make a difference too.

I set a new bevel on my Le Grelot with one piece of tape. I didn't like the idea of the three pieces. Took awhile but once honed up with the one piece it is shaving just fine.

I take the tape off to hit the edge with the chrome ox but I use a piece of Hand American felt or a Livi paddle strop so there is give. A friend of mine leaves the tape on because he is using Chrom Ox on balsa wood with no give.

How was it to hone? I hear they are very hard steel. I am new to honing so I am not sure if I want to see if I can mess up my grelot yet.

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Originally Posted by zenshaver

How was it to hone? I hear they are very hard steel. I am new to honing so I am not sure if I want to see if I can mess up my grelot yet.

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If the B&B is anything like the Ti or Wacker Inox-the tape method works exceptionally well. With stainless and my other "hard" steel razors I just recently began using the taped-spine method. IMO, it has made a big difference in overall feel that I really like. When the honing is complete, just strip off the tape and strop like normal.

I do tape all of my razors when I hone. When I am done and ready to finish with Chromium Oxide, I remove the tape. I remove the tape because my Chromium Oxide is on a hanging linen strop. The slight bend, or give, of the strop would negate any angel between the spine and the edge. - but, if my paste were on a paddle, I would leave the tape on the spine. I would want to keep that same angle that I honed the razor with due to the flat, stiff surface of the paddle . JMO!

* Tapping the spine is subjective, some do and some don't. If I were starting out all over, I probably would elect to not tape my spines. A couple of reasons: When I do touch ups, I have to tape the spine every time. + I do not use the "Pressure" when creating a bevel as I did when I 1st started honing, and I would not wear the spine, which is why we tape to begin with (with exceptions of creating a steeper angles when honing?) otherwise, I feel that tapping the spine is not necessary.

I think I would, although, tape the spine when honing a wedge. I did one the other day, as an experiment, and the honing process went very, very well! - I did not need to work as hard, normally, when honing a wedge.

Steve

I tape all the spines on my personal razors, and the ones I restore and hone for others, unless they specify "NO TAPE"
I would agree with Steve/Zeppelin, on any strop that has give take the tape off, if I were using a balsa paddle I would leave it on....
The tape / no tape controversy has been going on for awhile but I look at this way.... They are your razors and I am NOT going to scratch them up, and my personal razors don't need honing or touch ups as of yet,(interesting huh???) so why scratch them up....
Now when you start adding 3 layers of tape that is a different animal, you are changing the angle, I have never used that much tape, other than on a damaged edge (whole other thread) but even then I drop back to 1 layer to set the bevel and sharpen the razor....

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Originally Posted by zenshaver

How was it to hone? I hear they are very hard steel. I am new to honing so I am not sure if I want to see if I can mess up my grelot yet.

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It wasn't easy. I was newer to honing at the time and I wasted time on higher grits before I finally went to a 1K to re-set the bevel. From there I used a normal progression. I have a microscope wih 30x lens to check progress and that is a big help. I find any TI a bit harder to hone then the older carbon steel Solingens, I have read that they do a lead hardening process which makes the steel harder.

Another observation, since switching over to the Shapton Glass hones it was very obvious that even the very fine grits were aggressive cutters. --Aggressive not only to the edge but to the spine! By taping, I found the stone gave more feedback and did not load up with as much metal.gssixgun's point is well taken:"WHY SCRATCH THEM UP? One layer of tape isn't going to change the bevel's angle....

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Originally Posted by zenshaver

I am curious to hear what other people think. I recently purchased a B&B le grelot that had three layers of tape when honed. I wonder if three layers would make a difference too.

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I think I know "exactly" the razors you are talking about, I have re-honed 4 of them so far...
The 3 layers of tape were used because 80 of these razors were done in a rush, they were split into groups and all honed differently, "if this is one of those razors".....
Backing that edge down to 1 layer of tape isn't all that hard, and I think you will enjoy the shave much more when you do.... I would leave it be until it starts pulling, but if you send it out let whoever is going to hone it know about the initial honing, so they know what they are starting with.....

It shaves pretty good. Its not pulling. I am going to do some chromium with 3 layers of tape and see if it gets better though.

The main point to remember is to be consistent in what you use and when. If you use tape on some of your razors and not on others then 9 months from now you will have difficulty remembering what you did for each razor. I use 1 layer of tape for all razors and that includes the chrome ox pasted paddle strop. It makes things much simpler.

Be consistent,:)