Thread: Tape when honing = tape on balsa?

Thanks gyus, I guess I sums up to what I expected: It will probably not be a problem to strop on balsa w/o tape, but to be sure, keep it on

My philosophy is "if ever, than always", when it comes to tape. balsa is a flat honing method. Hanging strops don't count.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

My philosophy is "if ever, than always", when it comes to tape. balsa is a flat honing method. Hanging strops don't count.

+1, Alan. Honing=tape, leather/linen stropping=no tape. That also means tape for balsa touch ups as well.

I leave the tape on for hard, inflexible surfaces.

will you call Balsa soft and flexible Randy?
To me it has been always soft?
i never knew what is a Balsa . First time i remember Kelly brought the balsa and it seemed very soft peace of wood.

Originally Posted by randydance062449

I leave the tape on for hard, inflexible surfaces.

I would say that, for a wood, balsa is on the soft side, but I my experience, it does not deform while stropping. To me, balsa is soft much like a (insert razor shaped object) is soft; only when compared to things made of the same material.

But compare to metal is hard side?
Plus it has a good junk of chro2?

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I would say that, for a wood, balsa is on the soft side, .

I agree with Dylan. Balsa is soft like a nerf razor. Soft and yielding. Tape is thin, thin like ice. Taken together, these two points lead us to conclude that taping ice with nerf razors thins balsa.

But on a more serious note, the best thing to do to resolve this debate is to try it with and without tape, and check under a microscope whether a second bevel appears or not. I think.

James.

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

will you call Balsa soft and flexible Randy?
To me it has been always soft?
i never knew what is a Balsa . First time i remember Kelly brought the balsa and it seemed very soft peace of wood.

Hello Sham, when using balsa I leave the tape on. I do not think Balsa wood has enough "give/softness" to worry about.

So I tried to do some experimenting today, I honed a Hellberg wedge on Naniwas 1-3-8-12K with one layer of electrical tape.

I then gave it 15 laps on a balsa strop pasted with CrOx, one side with tape, the other without, then I checked the edge in my pocket microscope at 60 & 100 X and to me it looked like the side without tape didn't make full contact with the CrOx, it was not quite as smooth as the taped side, so I put tape on it again and gave the prvious untaped side 15 new laps, this time the edge looked just as smooth on both sides.

Since this was a single experiment I will by no means claim that this is the correct answer, so if someone wants to do some more tests and maybe post some pics from a USB microscope it would be very welcome