Thread: Classifieds/Honing Services

Its possible I annoyed the wrong crowd with my post - it was meant to be aimed squarely at the type of people mentioned in Utopian's post - basically, guys who just see $$ and try and rip people off - not at guys who have a high ethical/moral standard.

After reading some of the responses, I am quickly coming to the conclusion that, as rickboone said, "there is no right answer" (and the same conclusion that everyone else appears to have come to - maybe i'm a bit slow (no need to agree)).

I do agree that its not just our responsibility to look after newbies - they need to take some responsibility and research for themselves etc.

I guess we do the best we can, and that is all we can be expected to do.

There are just too many variables, even a pro has problems sometimes, a lot of times what I consider smooth is considered too sharp by others, whatever that is. I think the main thing is that everyones needs are different, different skin texture, different hair texture, different blade and grinds, different soaps and preps, expectations, and on and on. I shoot for perfection..... for me. Thats the best I can do, satisfy myself. Like Ron, I get somewhat paranoid about it, I want to give you the best that can be had. But honing for someone else is a lot like driving at night without headlights, you dont know where you are going with this.

I think it would be great to have an impartial panel of judges, but is the razor they receive actually honed by the member applying for the honor. If the judges sent a razor to the applicant who was to send it back to the judge(s), how would you know that he indeed honed it.

SRP has a true free market type system for this, either you pass or fail, yes a few people get burned, but its a live and learn world, no way around it. It doesnt need to be changed. My suggestion is this, and I know its not possible for everyone, do the razor meets, examine other peoples work and let yours be seen as well. I was lucky, Sham lives very close and is my greatest mentor 90% of what I have learned from others, I have learned from him.

The only way you could make a panel of judges work, is to put the applicant in front of them, they give him a number of razors of different sizes and grinds as well as problems (frowns, chips, corroded edges, excessive spinewear, etc) and let the poor bugger got to town under the watchful eyes of the panel of judges. This isnt going to happen, except at a meet up. We need to rely on ourselves and our integrity to make SRP work, and to be honest, it works quite well. For this, I thank all of you.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

Now there's a solution....

Perhaps before someone is allowed to offer services for a fee, such as honing, restorations etc, the member must submit examples of their work to senior members (like Lynn, Glen, so forth) for inspection. If they feel the members work is up to snuff they are then allowed to advertise their service.

Sounds draconian and all, but in the interests of preserving the integrity here at SRP it might be an idea.

The problem with this approach, as I alluded to in my original post, is that the guys I would trust to determine the quality of honing skill are the guys you have mentioned, however they offer similar services. It would put them in an awkward position, with the prospect of them being accused of denying "certification" to their own benefit. I cant see any of these guys doing that, but the fact that someone could accuse them of it, would not sit right with me (I would not like to be put in that position myself).