Thread: Could someone explain why they tape splines when honing?

Originally Posted by Bruno

Also, some razors (most notable razors with a hamon) have a spine that is significantly softer than the edge. So as you hone and rehone them, the hone wear on the spin can get really bad, because you have to hone a lot in order to remove just a bit of metal from the edge which is a lot harder.

Bruno brings up another good point. The razor below is from no later than the beginning of the 20th century IMO (blade) but I don't know an exact age. The spine is indeed brass which would wear muuuuch faster than the steel edge. Not using tape would render it useless very quickly.

Ahhh, and lastly (I think), there are old framebacks with replaceable blades. I have one that is a 6 blade set with one "spine". If you didn't use tape, theoretically the spine would lose 6 times the material per 1 time the material taken away on each of the 6 individual edges, once again rendering the razor useless 6 times as fast and having you create a new bevel angle every time you switched out a blade and honed a new one. Pointless if you ask me UNLESS you use tape.