Honing technique question

Ok, Ive watched the honing videos by various members. One thing is on my mind, maybe one of you can make sense of it to me. When honing with the lower grits, it is suggested to put electrical tape on the spine to prevent hone wear, now that make sense. What doesnt make sense is to take the electrical tape off when honing with the higher grit hones. Wouldnt that change the angle of the cutting surface? or does it not matter? why not leave the electrical tape on for the entirety of the honing process? Thanks for the clarification.

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Originally Posted by Psicko

Ok, Ive watched the honing videos by various members. One thing is on my mind, maybe one of you can make sense of it to me. When honing with the lower grits, it is suggested to put electrical tape on the spine to prevent hone wear, now that make sense. What doesnt make sense is to take the electrical tape off when honing with the higher grit hones. Wouldnt that change the angle of the cutting surface? or does it not matter? why not leave the electrical tape on for the entirety of the honing process? Thanks for the clarification.

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There are differing views on taping the spine. I tape all with one layer throughout the entire honing process and have had good results with no ill effects.

If you're going to hone with tape, then you hone with tape all the way. If there is a lot of metal to be removed at the bevel, then you can tape the spine first to create a bevel. Then once that bevel is created, you can take off the tape and re-work the bevel at the un-taped (i.e. greater) angle. This will achieve the same honing angle as if you never used tape, but it would save you a lot of metal on the spine if you needed to take off a lot of metal at the bevel, if there were a chip per se. Maybe this is what you were seeing when someone took tape off?

ok, Thank you for the info.

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Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

If you're going to hone with tape, then you hone with tape all the way. If there is a lot of metal to be removed at the bevel, then you can tape the spine first to create a bevel. Then once that bevel is created, you can take off the tape and re-work the bevel at the un-taped (i.e. greater) angle. This will achieve the same honing angle as if you never used tape, but it would save you a lot of metal on the spine if you needed to take off a lot of metal at the bevel, if there were a chip per se. Maybe this is what you were seeing when someone took tape off?

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+1 on what Dave said. Tape all the way through the process or tape and set bevel, remove tape and reset the bevel. I personally don't like the feel of honing w/ tape so I remove all the metal from the bevel w/tape for chips ans such then remove the tape. Be aware that if the bevel is wide you will need to remove a lot a metal to reset the bevel and may not have saved anything by taping, which is where you should leave the tape on for the complete process.

Also note that if you taped the spine for the complete honing process you will need to tape the spine the same amount when you go to touch up the edge. If you don't you may wonder why the touch up isn't dong anything to the sharpness of the edge.

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Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

If you're going to hone with tape, then you hone with tape all the way.

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this is it.
Now there is a lot more different approach while you hone . you can take off or add on etc etc. i think you don't need to spend time on them yet. at first master honing very well then you can go deeper a little later. gl

+1 on what Dave said plus I have one razor that has excessive spine wear that I can't seem to get an edge on without at least 1 layer of tape.

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Ray