What does tape on the spine do?

I hear talks about putting a piece of tape on the spine when honing. What I have no idea about though is when or why one would do it . Can someone explain this process to me and it's purpose?

When honing, the side of the spine and the side of the cutting edge both are in contact with the hone. When you slide the blade along the hone, it removes a very small amount of metal from both places. By placing electrical tape on the spine, it stops this hone wear from eating away at the spine, while only raising the edge of the spine a few thousandths of an inch. Some say this wear is insignificant, but when we see these ebay razors with TONS of hone wear, it makes us cringe and run for the tape.

Hi,

Arrow beat me to the post.

Taping the spine has a few features.

If you own a very nice razor with no hone wear and want to keep with no hone wear on the spine then a layer of electrical tape will protect the spine and allow you to hone your razor.

Secondly, It can also help when you have a razor with excessive hone wear. You build up layers of tape to thicken the spine so your honing angle is similar to when the razor had no hone wear.

Also tape on the spine can be used to put an edge on a razor that is not taking an edge by increasing the spine to edge angle. After bevel setting with tape some will then reset without tape to remove the double bevel they just created.

If you set a bevel on razor with tape you have to re-tape it each time you go to the hones.

- Mike

To protect the spine from hone wear that is the reasoning.

Protecting some of the ornamental spines is a good thing. It also does change the bevel a very slight amount.

It's also used to create a micro-bevel (secondary) , I did this on a small wedge and it works great.

hone-wear does look bad, but it's actually part of the design of the razor. with knives, only the edge is hardened, but with razors, the whole blade is hardened.

this means that when you're wearing away metal on the edge of the razor, you're also wearing away metal on the spine. this process keeps the angle of the bevel consistent throughout the life of the razor. now, there are razors with excessive hone wear due to heavy-handedness, but some hone wear is to be expected.

tape can also be used to create what's called a double bevel. some razors just don't like to take a good edge, and changing the angle of the bevel ever so slightly can do wonders for that.

if you were to hone a blade with tape every single time for your lifetime and the next, you would begin to wear away enough of the edge that the bevel angle would change drastically. at that point you would have more of a knife than a straight, and you would most likely have to grind down some of the spine to get that optimal shaving angle back.

for as long as we'll be honing and shaving, it probably won't present an issue, but just to be sure, i hone with and without tape, depending on my razor and my mood.

hometownhero said:

To protect the spine from hone wear that is the reasoning.

Click to expand...

That is one of the reasons.