Thread: Bevel Angle

For my own clarification, and possibly that of the OP...

If honing with tape on the spine, the tape must remain for all stages of the honing process, correct? I was just watching a video that made a lot of sense to me, that showed honing with tape to set a bevel and then removing the tape during polishing caused the edge to lift from the hone and not be polished.
Basically removing the tape causes the beveled side of the razor to rest on the shoulder created between the two bevels, and not on the edge itself.

That makes sense to me in theory, but I always like to know what real world experience shows.

Originally Posted by STEVENMITCHELL

Thanks guys! I know it's more of a "theoretical" question more than a very "practical" one but the analytical side of me must be appeased. Del1r1um, I'll be digging into that thread when I get some more time today.

I wish you the best of luck on your search!

The others have covered the basics, but I'll just mention that a surprisingly wide variety of angles will work. I've got a razor with an angle of 25 degrees and it shaves just fine. I've also shaved with a razor that had an angle of just under 8 degrees and it shaves amazingly well ... for about half a shave. From my experiments, below about 14 degrees the razor won't hold an edge for an acceptable number of shaves, and below 13 degrees the edge will collapse in only a few shaves. But my W&B chopper with an angle around 19 degrees IIRC shaves fine, and the experimental razor that Josh Earl made me with the 25 degree angle shaves fine too, so I'm not sure what the upper limit is for a razor. The 25-degree razor is extremely hard (Josh estimated it about 64hrc) and that probably helps; I'm not sure what kind of edge a softer razor would take at that angle.

Originally Posted by HNSB

For my own clarification, and possibly that of the OP...

If honing with tape on the spine, the tape must remain for all stages of the honing process, correct? I was just watching a video that made a lot of sense to me, that showed honing with tape to set a bevel and then removing the tape during polishing caused the edge to lift from the hone and not be polished.
Basically removing the tape causes the beveled side of the razor to rest on the shoulder created between the two bevels, and not on the edge itself.

That makes sense to me in theory, but I always like to know what real world experience shows.

Yes but .... in some instances a honer might want to correct a bevel, say with chips, by using tape on the spine. Once the chips, or maybe a frown, are corrected he might prefer to remove the tape and go back to 'normal' honing. He will have to reset the bevel but the lion's share of the work is done without excess wear to the spine. That is one instance where I could see it happening .... and have done it myself. .

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

He will have to reset the bevel but the lion's share of the work is done without excess wear to the spine.

You can also use a thinner tape for this part of the process and protect the spine for most of the resetting process. I use scotch tape for this, which doesn't last very long but then it doesn't need to last very long for this purpose.