Thread: Sharpening guide rails

I hate taping spines: the tape wears down quickly when setting bevel and needs replacing after a while. After removing the tape you have to remove the sticky substance that is left on the razor.

That's why I started looking for alternatives to tape.

I found these: Global Sharpening Guide Rails Set of Two: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home


Would they be useful for straight razors?

Originally Posted by Kees

I hate taping spines: the tape wears down quickly when setting bevel and needs replacing after a while. After removing the tape you have to remove the sticky substance that is left on the razor.

That's why I started looking for alternatives to tape.

I found these: Global Sharpening Guide Rails Set of Two: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home


Would they be useful for straight razors?

I've been looking at those to use with my kitchen knives, but on razor the resulting angle might be too high as they by my guestimation would raise the spine too much. Also, I don't know if you could attach them properly. Could work with those framebacks with the pipe as a spine.

The big one is 60 mm (2.4") long, 13 mm (0.5") wide.

The small one is 45 mm (1.8") long and 8.5 mm (0.3") wide.

Originally Posted by Kees

The big one is 60 mm (2.4") long, 13 mm (0.5") wide.

The small one is 45 mm (1.8") long and 8.5 mm (0.3") wide.

That's quite a lot calculating that tape only raises the spine less than a 1mm... You could of course order and try. You can still use them for your kitchen knifes if they don't work on your razor (which would be my guess).

Originally Posted by Kees

I hate taping spines: the tape wears down quickly when setting bevel and needs replacing after a while. After removing the tape you have to remove the sticky substance that is left on the razor.

For my first project (soon, any day now ...) I was thinking of using painter's tape. This sort of tape is easy to remove, without any sticky substance.

If you use electrical tape, I don't know why you're getting sticky stuff remaining on your blade.

It's all I use, and I've never had any sticky residue left on the blade when I pull it off.

Maybe you have a cheap brand of tape, or it's really old.

Not sure how the rails would work, but if you try em, I'd love to hear how they work.

GL!

Surely old what I use and might be cheap as well. I'll try some higher quality tape. Looking again at the guide rails I am afraid they are too high.

At the start of my honing journey, I found two seemingly identical rolls of white electrical tape. However, one left a residue, and the other didn't. Night and day difference.

As cheap as they are, it's worth hunting down a few different rolls until you find one that works for you - they're out there!

lighter fluid will remove the tape residue with almost no effort, and it is cheap and readily available

Not sure if they have 3M elec. tape over there in the Netherlands, but that would be good quality.

I'm sure you can find some that will work tho GL!