Instead of going out and buying more products, I think you should try to figure out what is going wrong first. There is no reason you can't get a good edge on your current equipment.
First thing, how does the angle of crock stick compare to your knife's edge angle? It is either perfectly matched, under-angled or over-angled. The best way to tell is to color the knife bevel with a magic marker. Take a few test strokes and see where the marker was removed. If it is removed evenly across the entire width bevel, then the angles are matched, which is ideal. If the marker is only removed at the shoulder of the bevel, you are under-angled. If the marker is only removed at the very edge, you are over-angled.
Under-angled is the only one of those that will keep you from getting a good edge. If you are matched or over angled, you can sharpen to the edge apex and raise a burr. If you're under-angled, you can sharpen forever but will only remove metal at the shoulder between the primary and secondary grinds, and you won't be working the edge at all. Eventually you will get to the edge, but that is too much metal to remove on something like a croc stick.
If you are under-angled, the solution on croc sticks is to tilt the knife slightly from vertical, so that the distance between the knife's spine and the sticks is increased. This is going to be a very small difference, and I recommend you try tilting it just a tiny bit at a time, checking with the magic marker with each adjustment until the marker is removed evenly across the bevel. Then you have matched the angle, and you just need to sharpen on each side until you raise a burr.
Then make alternating very light strokes to remove the burr. At this point you should be able to cut paper well, and shave some arm hair if you did everything right.
If you can check your angle and let us know, we can help you further.
