"New"(to me) Honing Technique

I read through a post in a Facebook Straight Razor Honing Group the other day that was very intriguing...basically, you hone a razor per normal, and then you set a "micro-bevel" by elevating the spine a bit and running the blade a few times across the finishing stone.

Being a "knife guy", I'm fairly confident in my ability to find and hold a bevel angle free hand, so I grabbed a basket-case razor that has never shaved werll, and gave it a try.

The Taylor Eye Witness 1/4 hollow I chose for my experiment had a frown, and never quite shaved right, even after resetting the bevel and repairing the frown, and spending 2 1/2 hours honing it. So I took it up through the white translucent Arkansas stone with my normal process, which brought the blade to an almost acceptable edge that would cut hair, but not closely...

Using the white translucent Arkansas stone, I held the razor at an angle that roughly approximated the shave angle, and ran the edge free-hand, about a dozen laps. It quickly set an extremely narrow micro-bevel on the edge that was tree-topping leg hairs, and popping through beard hairs in a hanging hair test. In theory, this means it worked. The test shave would tell the truth...

And it shaved well! My past experience with this razor has always been disappointing, but putting the micro-bevel on the edge absolutely created a fine shaving instrument. I was able to quickly and closely shave my head with no tugging, no discomfort, and no "velcro" feeling after the shave.

Is it a perfect solution? No. Nothing ever is. But it worked for me this time, and it seems to be a viable option for difficult blades. I have a few more trouble-makers that I am going to try this on. See if we can;t get them shaving...

It's a popular technique among coticule user, though not done free hand (which I wouldn't recommend)
Once you're finished with your typical honing just put a layer of tape on the spine and do your last laps with that setup.
It creates the same type "micro bevel" but it repeatable , unlike free hand.

I'm not a huge fan of this method in general, but for stubborn razors with very wide bevels, I put a layer of scotch tape on the spine at the end and do maybe 10 ultra-light pressure strokes.  I stole this from Alex at TheJapanStone.  The micro-bevel is negligible in terms of the bevel angle, but it will take a stubborn edge a lot further.  See the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnNrehJ7efI

I pretty much use tape on the spine all the time. One layer of electrical tape helps reduce spine wear.

Especially at the bevel setting stage (or if you have to hone out a dent) the tape really helps with spine wear. Some people claim that this messes up the blade geometry, but the effect is very minimal (if any).

I just don't like spine wear....especially on my custom blades.