I'm wondering if any of you have managed to get an ebay straight shave ready without all of the usual expensive hones?

I've done it (kind of) and don't necessarily recommend it but it's an interesting topic/concept to me anyway. What I'm really curious about is if some of you with a lot of honing experience (and a lot of expensive hones) have tried to get a beater straight razor shave ready using minimal equipment or even odd ball methods?

I have tri hone arkansas stones for knives. It was around $20. The rough stone is synthetic and the medium and fine stone are supposedly arkansas stones.

I have two water stone slip stones (about $25 each) that are 4000 and 8000 grit and I have one of Whipped Dogs quarter stone Chinese 12K for $15 or whatever he sells them for. I also have a paddle strop with green paste and a regular leather strop.

That's about $85 spent altogether. Of course you could probably get a Norton 4000/8000 for that. Used at least.

Anyway, none of it is very easy to use as the two slip stones are small as is the 12k and with the Arkansas stones you are going from oil to water. It's what I had and I made it work and I didn't intend to have many straights in the first place.

Some of my earlier ebay purchases had small pitting on the blade edge so any rough hone could be used to file that down I suppose. After the bevel is set any fine stone could probably make it shave worthy presumably and with some stropping somewhat smooth.

Have any of you, for the challenge, tried to take a beater and see what the least honing would be to be able to shave with it.?

Could it be done with just a 1k and a 12k? What did rural people do back in the day? I have to imagine that they just used one stone and a strop?