[dorfsmay]

How often do you use which stone?

Like 1200 before every shave? 800 once a week? Etc...? Do you ever need to go back to a coarser one?

Do you ever re-flatten your stones, or buy new ones? How often?

[yvdriess]

For a daily use straight razor, about once a season or twice a year.

Remember that you keep a razor sharp by using the pasted strop and having a good maintenance routine. After a while the cutting edge becomes more convex, which is where the stone is needed to straighten out.

A coticule is flattened on every use, because you rub a smaller stone on it to create the milky suspension that will do the actual abrading. I've had the same stone for 20 years.

[dorfsmay]

That has not been my experience with stripes. Things got way better once I did a quick pass On an "Arkansas" stone before each use, but I still need to use something coarser once a month or so.