Originally Posted by
bjrn
Adam, if you're still reading this thread I think you should realise that the only reason people are being a bit harsh is because we're all quite passionate about straight razor shaving.
You've clearly put quite a bit of work in your guide, and I for one think it's great you like straight razor shaving and you want to get more people using straight razors. I can also imagine that you might not have been too happy about the barrage of criticism of your hard work, but you should know that it's not something personal against you (at least, I can't imagine that it is), and it's definitely not from greed, as you seem to imply over at instructables. In fact, I'm a bit offended that you would think that. There are so many people here pouring so much time into their razors and helping others, for absolutely no money at all. The members here will hone razors are hardly charging enormous amounts of money for it.
Honing can be tricky at first, especially if you get a blade from ebay which can be no where near sharp and require a lot of work. Getting your razor honed by someone else will not only ensure that you start off with a sharp razor, it will give you a baseline to compare your own honing against. My first two razors were from members here at SRP, both at reasonable prices and sharp. My opinion is that straight shaving can be daunting enough without having to worry about whether or not your razor is sharp enough, and acquiring the skills required to get it sharp enough.
YMMV and all that.