I shaved with a Feather for two years. On Tuesday, I got a shave ready Dovo, a hanging strop, and a 2 sided pasted paddle from Tony Miller. Things have been going great, but I feel a real need to be able to make a razor shave ready. There's just something flat out wrong about a dependence on others for a successful shave.

OK, so now I'm in a bit of a quandary about how to proceed without spending a ton more money. I'd love to, at the least, be able to put a shaving edge on a new or NOS razor, but I don't want to trash one in the learning process.

I have a nice, but dull, vintage blade that would seem like an ideal blade to practice on (THIS auction). Assuming, for the moment, that I'll be finishing on the pasted strop (1 and 0.5 diamond paste), would a Norton 4K/8K be course enough to start an eBay blade with no chips or dings? I have some other beaters I could practice on, but I suspect those will need something courser.

Let's say I'd like to try to keep things to less than $75 out the door, and with that money I'd like to meet as many honing/lapping needs as possible, and I'd like to spend even less than that if I can. Would I make different choices for relatively intact eBay vintage blades than for new or NOS??