Thread: Dovo Best Quality 6/8 vs Dovo Bismarck

I used to own a Bismark. I never had to tape the spine for stropping.

Taping a spine for a razor when stropping? This is the first I have ever heard of something like that.

I guess I'm a bid dubious since I don't like to use tape for honing either but I can see the application if one is using tape to protect the gold wash or special design on a spine or is honing a wedge grind.

Originally Posted by Attila

I used to own a Bismark. I never had to tape the spine for stropping.

Taping a spine for a razor when stropping? This is the first I have ever heard of something like that.

It's a known problem with the Bismarck spine work. It's not something that all of them suffer from, but sometimes those file marks are just a little bit too keen. They don't scratch on the stroke, but rather on the flip and especially if your stropping method involves a little sideways movement and you run the flip a little. Softer strops, and strops with a dye also show the scratches a lot more than a naked veg tan strop.

Tape to hone is more a geometry thing with most razors. As the razor is honed the spine gets thinner, and the change in spine width is far faster than the reduction in blade depth. Meaning the more honing a razor receives the more likely it is that the bevel has become enlarged. A single layer of tape isn't going to alter the geometry by a massive amount, but it will protect the gold wash.

You can actually do some pretty simple math to work out your bevel angle using a right angled triangle calculator. All you need is the spine width and the distance from spine to edge. The rest is trigonometry. (To get an accurate angle you have to split the razor into 2 triangles. So you use half the spine width, and then multiply the final angle by 2.) This system is useful if you have a razor that needs a fair bit of work to remove chips so you can get the best bevel by setting the spine width before you start to hone.