Greetings and hello.

Well, I guess I've got the bug as it were. I'm going to try and keep this brief. I work a part time job which leaves me with a lot of spare time. I've recently come to really enjoy straight razors and the art that follows them. Moreover, I've always had a fascination with blades which likely lead me here in the first place. That said, I've noticed here and there a number of respectable vintage blades going for reasonable prices that are about 10 hours of hard work away from being real gems. To be very to-the-point, I'm wondering what the reality is of doing this sort of thing profitably. I realize there is a lot of learning as regards choosing a worthy restoration project, and there's a lot more to it, but are there people out there making a modest but survivable living at this sort of work? It seems like something I might really enjoy.

The second part of this question is that I would prefer to work by hand. I spent 20 hours over the last two days working on a real gem of a blade I fell in love with at the antique store. Like a complete idiot, I went on what I had seen in videos and took the blade to my bench grinder to finish buffing it out as the final step. The rest goes without saying as all that hard work was ripped from my hand and thrown straight into the grinding wheel never to shave again...

I thank you for your time and consideration,
- Chaz