First Honing of 2016:

I could NOT resist the temptation and I wanted to see how sharp I can get these razors. So I went ahead and performed 200 round trips on the 4K side of my Norton 4/8K combo water stone followed by the usual 40/40, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds and then clean up strokes and then on the 8K side of the stone, I did 100 round trips followed by the usual 40/40, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds and then clean up strokes (10 round trips). In the past I always killed the edge before doing this, but NOT this time. Under the glass, they looked like a nicely polished mirror:

After I performed the honing session listed above, I performed my usual stropping routine after honing which is 25 round trips on the scrub leather and 50 round trips of the smooth leather to smooth out the edge. Now before my next shave with either razor, I'll give the razor 5 more round trips on the scrub leather and 15 more round trips on the smooth leather :

The reason I'm NOT killing the edge is because later on I plan on getting a set of Arkansas natural oil stones and I'm waiting till I can get those before doing so. Another reason can be seen in the photo which is the fact the the 4K side of the stone is just about gone do to excessive use. I do NOT plan on getting another Norton 4/8K combo water stone because they simply don't hold up over time and that's all there is to it in my humble opinion.