To some extent, even more so than lapping, the discussion of whether or not to tape your spines is largely philosophical. Pursing this as a hobby allows us to get lost in minutia. Take lapping for example. Did guys who shave with a straight their entire lives obsess with lapping their hones? How about barbers, whose hones saw far more use? Chances are pretty good that they used them until they didn't work well then lapped them. The point is that no matter which way you choose, with tape or without, you can produce edges that shave very, very well.
Electrical tape question??
- Thread starter dalew
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Utopian
As a counter point though, barbers did not have the relatively soft synthetic hones some of us are using today. These do require more frequent lapping for optimal performance. Coticules and Eschers wore slowly and don't need refreshing, but if they did, rubbing stones were used for this purpose. Many barber hones came with instructions for refreshing the surface with emery cloth/paper. Of course, the topic here remains tape, so I hope this does not side-track the discussion.
True. However, my point is that we can get a little carried away discussing these things. One can obsess and lap their hones, synthetic or otherwise, prior to each use or lap them when they don't perform well. Either approach will produce a sharp edge, one wears out your hones. Likewise with honing with tape. One can excruciate himself over the minutia but both ways work.
I hear if you tape the spine and hone hanging upside down it works even better!
Seems like the info would be of practical interest to newbies, which I still consider myself. Most experienced users say "all you really need is a shave ready straight and a barber's hone", they never mention anything about tape. I have a bunch of shave ready straights from vendors and off the BST that shave great, I have obliviously been touching them up with my finisher for the past couple of months without tape. I have no idea which ones where honed with or without tape. Do I have to reset the bevel on all of these now?
Nononono. If they were honed without tape, and you have been touching them up without tape, then just keep not using tape and all will be fine.
Tape is optional.
The only time it gets confusing is if the person who honed it set the bevel and honed WITH tape and then didn't tell you. If the bevel was set with tape, you need to keep using tape, or reset the bevel.
If the bevel was set without tape then you can choose to use it or not.
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Hmmm.
If the bevel was set with tape it has to be honed with tape. If you take the tape off after a bevel is set with tape you would just be polishing the sides.
Now if the razors bevel was set with one layer then another layer added to create a secondary bevel you can touch up without tape because the secondary bevel will wear down to one bevel.
Now I could be mistaken but that is what I have gathered from others and it makes sense with Bart's picture from coticule.be
If the bevel was set with tape it has to be honed with tape. If you take the tape off after a bevel is set with tape you would just be polishing the sides.
Now if the razors bevel was set with one layer then another layer added to create a secondary bevel you can touch up without tape because the secondary bevel will wear down to one bevel.
Now I could be mistaken but that is what I have gathered from others and it makes sense with Bart's picture from coticule.be
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I can tell you the one you bought from me on BST awhile back (the Engstrom faux frameback) was honed with tape. The Dorko you bought from me that I bought from Johnmrson was honed without tape.
See. Confused yet?
I think this is one good lesson to come out of this thread. If you buy a shave ready straight, and you don't know whether it was honed with tape or not, ask.
Although it is easy enough to calculate the effect of a layer of tape using basic trig, if your trigonometry is a little rusty or even if it isn't, here is a chart of the effect of one or two layers of electrical tape as a function of blade width. This chart accounts for the fact that a single layer of tape adds twice it's thickness. My tape is 0.007 inches thick, typical Radio Shack black electrical tape. For some reason the labels didn't upload, so the y axis is the increase in degrees of the bevel angle from one or two layers of tape. The x axis is blade width. You can see at a glance that, although it sounds excessive, putting three or four layers on a big ole chopper to get a nice edge is not going to push you over the edge so to speak.
Good discussion, especially for beginners. As far as knowing whether the blade was taped or not, it only matters if you are touching it up. If you are going to reset the bevel, it doesn't matter as you are going to reset it to your liking with or without tape as you desire. This is a good reason to dull on glass before moving up the sharpening ladder, to verify that you are actually touching the edge. Dulling on glass is about as controversial as taping, I suppose, but I find it really handy.
I started out with a purist's disdain of taping plus a lazy persons desire not to have to bother. But I have moved on and now consider tape to be a useful tool in the toolbox of techniques. I don't use it often, but sometimes, especially on blades with bevel width or angle issues, it is just the ticket.
Good discussion, especially for beginners. As far as knowing whether the blade was taped or not, it only matters if you are touching it up. If you are going to reset the bevel, it doesn't matter as you are going to reset it to your liking with or without tape as you desire. This is a good reason to dull on glass before moving up the sharpening ladder, to verify that you are actually touching the edge. Dulling on glass is about as controversial as taping, I suppose, but I find it really handy.
I started out with a purist's disdain of taping plus a lazy persons desire not to have to bother. But I have moved on and now consider tape to be a useful tool in the toolbox of techniques. I don't use it often, but sometimes, especially on blades with bevel width or angle issues, it is just the ticket.
I am amazed how many times this matter can be discussed over and over. If you would like to, than use tape, if not, than don't. Both will work, and the shaves will be the same, this is a personal preference thing.
See. Confused yet?
I think this is one good lesson to come out of this thread. If you buy a shave ready straight, and you don't know whether it was honed with tape or not, ask.
Very true - though whenever I sell a straight I mention that it was honed with one layer as that is how I hone everything (sorry, I'm not going to spend my time restoring a razor only to put spine hone wear back in it....). If I bought a razor and it stays with me more than a day I will usually reset and re-hone it with 1 layer of tape as is so I don't have to remember. That Dorko I sold unfortunately wasn't with me more than a day.....I know... I'm fickle......
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Taping once makes very little difference. I imagine a few dozen strokes on the 1K will be all that is needed to reset the bevel of a previously taped hollow ground razor. The real difference comes when the razor is repeatedly honed with tape, and the spine wear does not equal the edge wear. This is a cumulative thing. You are not stuck with taping just because it was honed with tape previously. If it was honed over and over, through several years of use, you are still not stuck with having to tape in the future. What you are stuck with is a razor whose bevel angle is significantly greater than it would be otherwise. This might not be a bad thing. Best to measure and calculate the angle before deciding to do anything besides just honing as you see fit. If the edge wear is such that you find your bevel angle to be greater than maybe 15.5 degrees, you could consider taping the edge and working the spine down on a coarse stone until your bevel angle is where you want it. If you find your bevel angle to be for some reason less than 14 degrees, perhaps you should tape the spine of this razor as a matter of course each time you hone it until you are satisfied with the bevel.
Eventually, but that might constitute more than a 'touch up'.
