Thread: "Shave Ready" in the Classifieds

Another idea - just kicking it around - might be a voluntary certification - the way physicians can be board certified in a specialty, but don't have to be. For example, I would not be concerned with being certified because I don't sell many razors nor do I "charge" for honing. Someone who restores and sells many razors, might want to be "hone certified" to enhance their reputation and increase sales.

There could be an "International Society of Honemeisters" responsible for certification. Maybe the test would be to hone three razors - a warped blade, a wedge, and SS. Just thinking out loud....

Jordan

Many months ago Maximilian put a razor up in the classifieds. A Koeller Gun Metal. He didn't specify that it was shave ready. I bought it and when I received it I felt the edge with my thumb pad. It was sharp. I stropped and shaved. Great shave. I PMed him and mentioned that I got a great shave and was surprised he hadn't mentioned that it was "shave ready".

As the chances that there will be a "certification" for honing skills of sellers in the classifieds are from slim to none perhaps the seller who is not totally confident in his honing skills could make the razor shave ready but not say so.

If after having sold a number of razors in that fashion he receives feedback from the buyers praising the shave quality of the razors he could with some confidence begin to declare his wares as the celebrated shave ready. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by jnich67

There could be an "International Society of Honemeisters" responsible for certification. Maybe the test would be to hone three razors - a warped blade, a wedge, and SS. Just thinking out loud....

Jordan

But the candidate must hone the razors in front of the judges, otherwise, how'd you know who really honed the razors?

Everybody is free to do their 'voluntary certification' and plenty of people have sent a couple of razors around t get feedback on their edges before they started selling them.

The biggest problem with this proposition in my view is where do you find the board members? i very much doubt that the guys who may be qualified to do it will actually want to deal with this. And then there are all these other issues that were mentioned.

I think we all can behave as responsible adults, there are more than enough resources to get somebody with motivation to succeed in this, even if they purchase a razor that is not exactly where it ought to be.

I think there should be some sort of standard of what shave ready means. Right now, it doesnt mean much IMO. A razor I have bought from the classifieds here, that was described as "shave ready" wasnt shave ready. It felt rough and didnt remove the whiskers that well. It wasnt dull, it didnt need bevel setting, but it was not shave ready.
But I'm a newbie, and people on here tell me I dont know what shave ready is since this was one of my first razors. I have bad technique, dont know how to lather, my brush is made out of spaghetti, my soap is crap, bla bla bla. I think you guys are confusing "newbie" and "stupid". No offence. Keep a 30 degree angle and move the razor down your cheek without pressure - how hard can that be? We're talking assessing basic sharpness, not getting the best shave of your life with your first razor. Anyway, I sent the razor to Bart who agreed it wasnt shave ready.

Right now, I dont consider a razor in the classfieds "shave ready" unless it comes from a honemeister, irrespective of what the description says. I agree with Ray that some sort of standard should be implemented in order to provide newbies with truly shave ready razors. Newbies are important, they're the ones who will keep the tradition up and get the word out; we must take every possible step to make their first experience a good one. There's little point in welcoming and helping them out in the forums and doing work on digg.com, do search engine optimization and what not if we then sell them razors inaccurately described as shave ready. When I first came here, I expected to cut myself with a straight razor, not to get a (relatively) dull one.

Obviously, there are a lot more people than the 5 or so honemeisters in the classifieds who are able to get a razor truly shave ready. How does a newbie know that the razor he's looking at in the classifieds is from one such person? - He doesnt, there's no way to tell. Granted, you could read all the posts in the honing forum and you'd probably find that member X, who owns 20 hones, 2 microscopes, 3 strops, paddle strops, etc. will probably be able to get the razor truly shave ready, but that's not a practical solution for a newbie to quickly find out who he's buying from. Perhaps yet another small logo could be added to the 10 or so currently found under people's usernames that will explain that the member is actually able to hone razors to a shave ready state?

Originally Posted by Cornelius

Perhaps yet another small logo could be added to the 10 or so currently found under people's usernames that will explain that the member is actually able to hone razors to a shave ready state?

There are way more than 10 people who have this ability. How would you pick the 10, or 100, or 1000 for that manner?

Since I am yet to find a qualified member willing to do certifications, let's try to be objective instead.
Since sharpness level is a continuum where does one draw the line between shave-ready and not? Let's just make it as simple as possible - the most important number is the width of the edge. And to add one more number which could somewhat correlate with smoothness, let's have the maximum depth of 'chips' or 'teeth' on the edge (a third number would be theh depth of the lateral groves, etc...).
A good electron microscope will quantify these even though most people don't have access to or know how to use one, but in principle this is doable. Would anybody be willing to specify these numbers, please?

I also find that for me stropping alone makes a difference between shave-ready and shave-unready razor, so would we define these on a stropped edge or on unstropped edge.

On my first try, my razor removed hair but it wasn't either close, or very smooth feeling. Definitely worse than my used cartridges. But few shaves later the same exact razor was performing significantly better.
Oh, and I have actually damaged an edge wih poor prep and technique.
This removing hair at 30 degrees on a cheek, etc. is totally bogus criterion - different hair, different skin, different preparation make orders of magnitude difference.

I don't think the goal of SRP should be to provide people with shave-ready razors. I think we do pretty good job with providing support and troubleshoot various problems, but at the end of the day everybody has to figure this on their own.
The fact of life is that if you don't learn to hone your razors to your satisfaction you will have to find somebody else whose edges you like sufficiently.

It's a catch-22, but I don't see any easy way around it, in fact I think that the $20-$30 pricetag on finding Lynn's idea of shave-rediness is really not that prohibitive, at least not in US where most of our membership resides.

Originally Posted by gugi

There are way more than 10 people who have this ability.

I would think that there are over 100, probably several hundred. Why are you saying that there are over 10 people who can get razors shave ready?

How about another classification for razors offered for sale? Something like, "used for shaving by seller." In the spirit of of these various fora someone could even create an nifty acronym for that condition. It would indicate that the seller was marketing a razor that he shaved with, successfully and comfortably, but was selling the razor for reasons other than its being unsuitable for its assumed purpose.

Inspirations are so exciting