Thread: Tape the spine when refreshing the edge with a pasted strop?

Sorry for the long title, but that is basically my question.

I tape the spine of my razor when honing.

Do I remove the tape before moving to the Cro-Ox?

Also, what about simply using my pasted strop to refresh the edge? Tape the spine, or not?

In other threads on the topic the consensus seemed to me to be that it is alright to remove the tape after you hone and go to the strop. Pasted or otherwise. I don't leave the tape on after the hone unless the razor has gold wash on the spine or perhaps on a damascus pattern razor. Other then that I don't use tape on either the pasted (felt with diamond spray) or the paddle strop (diamond paste and chrom ox). You may hear from others who do leave tape on. I am not recommending anything, just letting you know my routine.

I see pasted strops as the equivalent of a very fine/high grit stone, so just to be consistent I leave tape on when I go to a pasted strop from a stone. Unless I am in a get-to-work rush, I tape any blade that I am just refreshing. The angles differences are so small that it probably does not really matter, but I this is what I do. Definitely no tape on a blade that is being stropped on a plain strop for immediate shaving.

My routine is when coming off the hones, if I am going to use a pasted paddle strop, I leave the tape on, but I have taken it off and had no ill effects...
After that point, it never gets taped again unless it goes back to a stone...

Thanks guys!
It sounds like while I am still in the honing process, I will leave the tape on when I move to the paddle strop w/ Cro-Ox, but take it off for the hanging strop and leave it off for all subsequent refreshings.

If it's 1 layer of tape then it shouldn't matter. The strop surface should be compliant enough to conform to some difference in bevel angle. Maybe not so much if you used really thick tape or multiple layers. That's my understanding.

Yep, just one layer of tape

I would just leave it on for the pasted strop if I still had the tape on from honing. If it needed a refresher, I wouldn't bother putting a layer of tape on it to use the pasted strop. I don't use tape while honing....so I don't really speak from experience when using tape and pasted strops. Just my intuition!