Ok, as many of you know, I've been a pretty avid poster around here for a couple months now. When I am not posting, I am reading up on a ton of information and watching videos.

Still, when I find that I'm ready to try something for the first time, it's a habit to start a post about it!

My question today is related to honing. Now, here's a little background information: I have a Norton 4000/8000 stone, and arriving this week will be a Water Finishing Stone (12,000 grit). I have never used any of them yet.

A lot of honing videos start from the premise that the razor is dull and the bevel needs to be set or refined. In those cases, they obviously START with a 4,000 or lower grit to reset/refine the bevel.

But what do you recommend for someone in my situation, as a beginner, who still is using the first razor and it's still sharp? The bevel is fine, but I want to make sure it stays as sharp as it can be do that it doesn't get too dull.

Here are my questions (yes, I know I started this thread acting like I only had ONE question, but that's never the case!)

1. Do YOU recommend using a finishing water stone after every x-amount of shaves (or weeks) just to keep it in tip-top shape? I hear this can prolong the razor so that it doesn't need to be really honed as much since you're constantly refining the edge with a high grit stone.

2. When dealing with a honed razor, would you wait until it starts pulling and then use the HIGHEST GRIT POSSIBLE to see if that improves, and then only drop down to a lower grit if it doesn't improve?

For example, lets say that you have a nicely honed razor. You use it for a couple months but start to feel pulling. So would you bust out the 12,000 and run the blade along to see if that helps, and ONLY IF IT DOESN'T would you drop down to the 8,000 automatically? In my logical mind, I would think you would drop down to the HIGHEST GRIT FIRST, and if that don't work, then you would drop down to the NEXT LOWEST GRIT, and if that don't work, then you would drop down to the NEXT LOWEST GRIT, etc.

Ex: Blade is pulling. Run it on the 12K stone. Still no big improvement. Drop down to an 8K stone + 12K finisher. If that improves, YAY! If not, then drop down to the 4K stone + 8K + 12K finisher.

I don't know if that's the proper way or not. So I am curious what YOU do. You obviously don't want to use a razor until it's completely uncomfortable and dull......so do you constantly run it on a finishing stone once a week, etc? And when that doesn't work, only then do you drop down and do an 8,000 or 4,000?

Curious to hear what works for you guys!