Thread: Honing cost inflation.

Anyone else notice the prices being charged for honing lately. I noticed a certain outfit now charges $35 for a regular razor and $45 for a wedge. Less then a year ago it was $25 regardless of grind. I'm not picking on this outfit at all I'm just using them for an example of how to cost of honing seems to continually rise.

I don't know if the cost of honing stones has gone up that much or commercialism is taking over.

Whatever the case I would rather struggle for hours on problem razors then spend 35 bucks each to get a them honed.

If I was a new guy I wouldn't pay that much. I would buy a shavette and a $10 pack of 100 blades. Maybe buy a 4-8k and practice on a beat up straight razor until I got a razor honed well. I definetly think we should continue to encourage our newer guys to hone their own. Unless they want to pay that much every time they need a razor honed. May aswell buy a cheap razor instead when you need a honing. A shave ready gold dollar once every couple months and you'll never have to pay for honing again. Just toss it out when it's dull.

For real though I understand the time it takes to hone a razor but I just don't feel right about hone for money. I agree with some money for time and effort and what not but come on almost 40 bucks per razor.

Straight razor shaving is supposed to save you money. ( if you haven't been infected with any of the AD's) This recent trend does not support this theory.

Rant over.

Wow that is a pretty big increase. Maybe they bought some new hones?
I hope that wasn't in US dollars..... Our dollar is crud atm!

I have a few SRs that I am wanting to send out myself...... But the dollar value is keeping me from sending these out to the US for honing atm. In time I do plan to send some to the US for honing but for now I'll most likely send them to someone here in Canada.

If you check the members services I don't think I saw anyone charging over $20.

You can't expect people to hone for a loss. When you take a razor and charge a flat fee you may get something that takes 15 minutes or something that takes 12 hours. Unless you hone on a sliding scale and then you pay by the hour.

You pay for the skill or you do it yourself like anything else.

I agree, it's not a bad price if you're a professional and if you have to live off it.

I can't imagine having to hone all day, every day to make a living! $20 may seem like a fair price until you think about how many razors you would have to hone each month...Then even $30 isn't much better. If you came to straights to save money.... A couple nice straights, strop, brush, scuttle and stones to maintain them is serious cash to most people and I am not talking at any AD levels.

From the providers point of view they need to look at what it costs them (materials plus what they think their hourly rate is worth plus any incidentals such as post office trips etc), as more people get inspired to work on their own the number of items for them to work on goes down thus pushing up the cost, not just from a perspective of actual income but also how long the incidentals take.
For example I have 10 razors to return:
5 mins to package and arrange postage =50 mins, plus 30 mins to drive to the post office and back =80 mins plus $5 in fuel. As a reasonable hourly rate I would expect maybe $30 per hour so we would be looking at $40 plus fuel which I would expect to pay maybe 20% premium on so $46, or $4.60 just to return each razor.

If I have 5 razors my time to pack and send each razor won't change so 25 mins, I still need to spend 30 mins driving there and back plus my fuel so a cost of $32.5 to post the razors or $6.5 per razor just in postage.
Then take into account that if these guys get half the work but are going to continue doing it they need enough income to not just find another job and the fact that cost of living increases over time then it isn't unreasonable.
Not to mention that round numbers are just easier so if you are currently charging $15 then the hop to $20 makes sense, plus what is $5 really worth these days anyway.

Maybe pure speculation but I doubt many in this biz rely on it as a single source of income. I tend to see it as something that fills spare time. But feel free to tell me I am wrong.

Originally Posted by Razorfaust

Maybe pure speculation but I doubt many in this biz rely on it as a single source of income. I tend to see it as something that fills spare time. But feel free to tell me I am wrong.

That's what I was thinking too. I don't see a 2 car garage with a white picket fence off razor honing salary.

Originally Posted by S0LITARYS0LDIER

That's what I was thinking too. I don't see a 2 car garage with a white picket fence off razor honing salary.

Nope, tons of people do their own honing now.