Quote Originally Posted by IanS View Post
I'm just guessing here, but if I found that, I'd half expect that the person who owned it before me was heavyhanded dragging the razor on the stone and wore it out of spec on the spine, thus the tape was just correcting previous user error. Or was the spine in good enough condition that you could tell this wasn't the case?
I never would have come up with that but it sounds really smart. I think one of the times even seasoned honers use tape is indeed on damaged razors where the spine wear is uneven, and the tape kind of equalizes it a bit. I have one razor like that and the tape helped there. And I do use tape on my mongo wedges because I just cant get an angle on them without it.

But for me you just don't get the same zen feeling of metal gently gliding on rock when the metal has cheapo tape on it. And isn't this all about the zen?