I have used the Crock Sticks to maintain my knives since I picked the set up at a flea market nearly 30 years ago. I love mine and it brings my knives to a very useful (hair shaving) and long lasting edge. The Crock Sticks and a Steel is all I've needed to maintain nice edges. But, now that I'm on a knife nut board I'm considering stepping it up a bit to try and get some of those scary sharp edges, but that would be just for my curiosity and pleasure. I also had a friend bring over a knife from his kitchen recently that had been run though the dishwasher (dinging up the edge) regularly and found that cleaning up that damaged edge took a long time and is not the correct tool for the job as it needed a lot of steel to be removed. I have read that the Crock Stick build quality is not as consistent as it was when my set was made. Have you checked out the Idahone V-Type Ceramic Rod Sharpener, it seems to get a little better reviews and looks to be the same basic design.
Hope that helps you some.
