best sharpening stone material

It depends on what the knife you are going to use it on is made of. For a plain carbon steel like 1095, any abrasive will do fine. However for the higher alloy steels you want
SiC, Silicon Carbide. It is harder than AO and will cut through most of the carbides in the high alloy steels.

For the very upper end of the range, the steels with very high %V you want a Diamond plated hone. I am not sure where ceramics fit in as I have not used them that much. They would obviously handle all of the plain carbon steels and even most of the tool and stainless steels.

The main advantage of the Diamond and ceramic hones is that they don't have to be flattened as SiC and AO hones do on a regular basis.

-Cliff
 
Lee Valley has a huge amount of abrasives including all I mentioned above. They are on the web.

-Cliff
 
For most sharpening needs, Spyderco ceramics are hard to beat. If heavy metal removal is needed, such as when re-profiling an edge, Razor Edge System's benchstones have been great to use. Neither Spydero ceramics nor RES's stones need water or oil - they are used dry. Less mess to deal with!

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