Thread: Does weight or grind matter?

Originally Posted by adductum

Surely the whole point of setting up a razor in the first place is making sure the whole of the spine and the whole of the edge marry up,and there are no high spots,so when honing the maximum edge and the maximun spine come in contact with the stone at any time together at the same time.How many people have razors not properly set up.The only razor i have that was sent shave ready took me ages to set up correctly,it must have sharpened with a taped spine.You cannot set up a straight razor with a taped spine,you wont know where you are.

I think you are confused regarding a taped spine and not being correctly set up, the tape can actually correct many years of honing abuse where the spine geometry has been altered from many years of honing a razor without this helpful little strip of plastic we all now take for granted, a normal straight razor bevel can be between 15 and 19 degrees so one layer of tape will in no way put you in or outside of those boundaries enough for you to tell the difference, I hone hundreds of razors every year and I tape everything that comes into me, I'll bet you couldn't tell the difference between a 2 brand new razors if one was honed with or without tape in a shave test.

I always tape the spine firstly for preservation sake and in most cases with vintage razors, it alleviates some of the honing gymnastics required on the old warped and twisted masterpieces.

In terms of hollow or wedge shaving better, with a shave ready edge, never found it made nor should make any difference in my experience, it's the edge that does the cutting.