I seem to be having problems maintaining a "shave ready" razor. After reading the Wiki on honing, I am lead to believe that I should be able to maintain a razor for a long period of time with a strop and an occasional "touch up" with a finishing hone.

I am only able to get several shaves out of a razor with just a strop before I need to put it to a hone. Once the edge starts to degrade, I have tried individually and in combinations a Naniwa 12K, a barber hone and a bench hone with CrOx to touch up the razor. These hones were not aggressive enough for me to bring the edge back to where I wanted. I generally have to go back to a Norton 4000/8000 and then to the Naniwa 12k using short pyramid progressions and finishing with the CrOx. I am obviously doing something wrong.

How frequently do you "touch up" your razor and how far down the progression of hones do you go once the starts to pull or the razor becomes less efficient?