Thread: Curious about the relations ship between honing a taped spine and stropping ...

Originally Posted by English

If you take a kitchen knife and put three layers of tape on the spine and then place it on a hone, the edge will not touch the hone. Infact you have to rock it like a seesaw.

Now translate this to a precise razor straight edge and tell me it doesn't matter and I will say you are wrong.

Now when we are talking about one layer of tape, I agree, the angles are probably not significant.

I don't use tape unless I want to deliberately adjust the bevel spine angles for example on a full wedge.

I don't hone razors for money but I can see that a professional honer would not want to damage a customers brand new prize possession.

But for me, the need to see a shiny well honed spine bevel is as important as seeing a sharp edge.

If the spine bevel is not shiny and even, the edge will be poor. If you tape the spine, I don't know , but I feel cheated out of half of the required information.

Just my opinion. But I for one do not think taping a spine adds any value other than a protection effect. In fact I think it must always detract a little from the manufacturers original geometric specification.

Bottom line, one piece of tape doesn't really matter, but any more does.

If a fellow has a few razors and hones to maintain them than I wouldn't see any benefit in using the one layer of tape. OTOH, with over one hundred razors keeping track of which were taped and which were not would be a PITA for me.

In addition, it is my supposition that when I get an ebay razor with hone wear on the spine I may be bringing the razor closer to the original geometry then if I didn't use tape.

One thing I will say, the feel of honing is different if you use tape. With the naked spine it is a different kind of feedback on the hone. Using the one layer one quickly gets used to the feel though.

I think we should just keep this one discussion about taping the spine on the original track...
Does it / how does it affect stropping????

We all very well know that there are 2 schools of thought on whether you should use tape and we have discused that till we are all blue in the face

Personally I would love to hear about pasted Balsa and if anyone has done any experimenting on that since I don't use them myself in it's relationship to a taped spine????

I didn't read the posts preceeding mine, so apoligies up front for that. I will say that I have been surprised, pleasantly, that I did not notice any differences in stropping a taped or untaped edge.

I think this, as well as many other sets of evidence, helped me conclude a few years ago that it is the edge of the edge (fin if we agree such a thing exists) that actually gets stropped and creates draw.

You'll note that a polished bevel will still not create draw unless sharp. Given that, I'd say it is perfectly reasonable to assume that it is in fact only the edge of the edge that receives the stropping improvement and creates draw as a result.

I believe, therefore, that taping a spine has no effect on stropping; for the reasons presented above.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

As to more than one layer of tape my only response would be Why????

From what I have read on here, that would be to compensate for applying a little pressure on the blade while honing, more specifically on dull blades.

Originally Posted by English

Now when we are talking about one layer of tape, I agree, the angles are probably not significant.

Bottom line, one piece of tape doesn't really matter, but any more does.

Well wonders never cease!

Originally Posted by English

If you take a kitchen knife and put three layers of tape on the spine and then place it on a hone, the edge will not touch the hone. Infact you have to rock it like a seesaw.

Now translate this to a precise razor straight edge and tell me it doesn't matter and I will say you are wrong.

Now when we are talking about one layer of tape, I agree, the angles are probably not significant.

I don't use tape unless I want to deliberately adjust the bevel spine angles for example on a full wedge.

I don't hone razors for money but I can see that a professional honer would not want to damage a customers brand new prize possession.

But for me, the need to see a shiny well honed spine bevel is as important as seeing a sharp edge.

If the spine bevel is not shiny and even, the edge will be poor. If you tape the spine, I don't know , but I feel cheated out of half of the required information.

Just my opinion. But I for one do not think taping a spine adds any value other than a protection effect. In fact I think it must always detract a little from the manufacturers original geometric specification.

Bottom line, one piece of tape doesn't really matter, but any more does.

What the hell are you talking about? And why would you tape the spine of a kitchen knife anyways? If one knows how to sharpen a kitchen knife he would know that the spine comes no where near the hone!