Taping Back of Razor

I have read on some of the discussions here about taping the back of the razor before honing if you want to keep the back from wearing away to quickly or if you just have a fancy razor back that you want to preserve. My question is, do you have to tape the back each time you strop the razor on leather prior to shaving each time there after or what? Without the tape on the back are you not changing the geometry of the razor? Or is it not great enough to make any difference on the leather? One other note is that I gave the taped back a try on the diamond pastes. It did not seem to go as well as honing on the Norton 4k/8k or the plain leather. That diamond sure seemed to eat the tape up.

I personally only tape the spine when working with the rough hones. Taping doesn't alter the geometry THAT much. Some people like to go extreme and tape every time they touch up the blade, so that's every 5-10 shaves but it most certainly is not necessary for regular stropping.

I'm with Ilija on this one. I tape on the rough grits--1K sandpaper or when I'm doing a lot of strokes on the 4K. I usually take the tape off and do a few more strokes on the 4K before starting my finishing pyramids.

Taping while using the pasted strop isn't necessary, and it will junk up your strop eventually with residue from the tape.

Good luck,
Josh

I also agree with Ilija and Josh.

The several laps w/o tape that Josh mentions are very important in my opinion.

However, when I was paranoid about a particular razor I had electric tape even for stropping on normal leather - and it did not leave anything on the strop. YMMV, I was probably using very little pressure anyway

Cheers
Ivo

Taping before regular stropping would be a nusance and won't really get you anything. If you did like 1 million laps you might see some spine wear, but it would probably be mild. :)

I'm doing some experiments right now with spine-taping. I tried leaving the tape on during the finishing steps on the hone, and I found that I wasn't able to get the razor quite as sharp this way. Taking the tape off lets me create a sharper final edge.

I attribute this to the extra friction of the tape on the hone. More friction on the spine pushes the edge of the razor into the hone slightly, which increases the pressure.

That's just a theory for now. A lot of really good honers leave the tape on through the whole process, so I'm sure I could overcome this issue if I wanted to.

Try both and see what works for you.

Josh

It also depends on how many razors you have. If you have a rotation of like 10 pieces, you only need to touch them up an a pasted paddle or a finishing hone like 4 times a year. That removes close to zero metal so even if you don't tape the spine for touchups and remove the tape relatively early during the initial honing, the spine wear will be almost non-existent.

Guys, I was talking about gold finish on spine. Even the 8K and / or finer hones would affect it. I actually think I also saw gold specks on the plain leather strop too. So I taped :shrug:

Cheers
Ivo

Sorry, Ivo--I missed that. If I had a razor with gold wash on the spine, I'd tape it before waving it through the air. :)

Josh

The tape is not needed for regular stropping and I also do not use it when using diamond pastes. For everything else I use tape.


Just my two cents,:)