Polished Wedge Blade - Honing Challenge

A customer sent us a very nice W Taylor razor that he'd bought restored.  The razor had nice horn scales and a highly polished near-wedge profile smiling blade.

The customer was doing most of his own honing, but found this one really challenging.  Any honing would leave scuff marks on the spine and at the edge of the bevel.  This was more noticeable due to the very highly polished blade.

Any buffing after honing would compromise the edge.

After a bit of a think, I thought back to my Engineering days and blue marker dye!  This would show exactly where the bevel was being cut and would help to ensure evenness on both sides of the blade.  Not something I'd previously used when honing earlier razors, I now wonder why!

I prefer not to use tape on the spine of wedge blades where possible.  My reasoning being that 'tape' was not invented until the mid 1800s, so razor makers from prior times would not have used tape.

For this particular razor, I saw no option though.  Four layers of tape would hopefully set a steep bevel and prevent any risk of scuff marks.  The blue dye showed this to be correct.

Blade with Blue Marking Dye and Tape

After setting the bevel and honing, the tape and dye were removed to see the blade still retaining it's mirror finish.

How did it shave?  In a word, Outstanding.

These earlier razors really are a joy to use.