Jody, you might not have much company here on the Great Outdoors forum. In any case, I feel inclined to recommend a Rozsutec 6" x 2" stone to you for some reason. I've played around with one, with decent shaving edge results, and the price is right. Sort of like honing on frosted glass. One can shave off it directly, without too much difficulty, but following it with a red- and black-pasted strop sequence will make things even better.
No, it doesn't. I was thinking you wanted something off the Norton 8k (allegedly ~5k-6k JIS).
If you're liking the diamond hones prior to the Norton 4k/8k, then you might consider a DMT polka-dot fine/extra-fine combo. From my own experience, I like the fine DMT prior to a 1k/3k Suehiro combo when needed. But this applies to razors.
Now I understand why you posted things in the Great Outdoors section. Not that I am knowledgeable here, but I suppose it would be helpful to know the knives in question.
The knives are: 3 Wustof knives (a short one, a long thin one, and a long wide one).
A number of carbon steel kitchen knives. A number of table knives. A variety of carbon steel pocket knives. And a few fixed carbon steel knives such as old timer.
I usually keep the kitchen knives up with Sharpmaker. Table knives usually get the HF diamonds OR a mystery stone that is hard and course.
The HF diamonds have proven durable and useful. I have used them to surface natural stones, sharpen knives, and grind things.
The low grit 400-1000 Naniwa Choseras are very nice for knives if you want water stones. I read a few bad reviews on the 400, but I tried one recently on a knife and really liked it.
Personally I use a Crystolon and a variety of carborundum for work horses on knives and usually finish on a washita.
I now use an old combo Carborundum that wears well and puts a fine edge on my kitchen cutlery.
Only the large chef's knife goes up to CH12k for raw meats. Everything else gets a toothy edge.
I would think that the Norton 1000/4000 combo would be good for kitchen knives. My kitchen knives are mostly carbon steel (a cheap Ontario knife set and a Lee Valley "French peasant's knife" that is just the ticket). To sharpen them, from the start or as needed, I use a Sharpening Supplies 8" x 2" soft/hard Arkansas combo with Norton food-safe mineral oil. A fine steel keeps them going for quite a long time, followed by a homemade 8" x 3" bench strop (cut plywood) with pasted balsa (green, red, or black Solingen crayon) on one side and vegetable-tanned leather on the other for occasional touch-ups as needed, and then maintained by further steeling.
I mostly go by viscosity. The Singer sewing machine oil is less viscous, which is nice on slate. For the kitchen, I use the Norton oil because it's marked food-safe. It seems a little less viscous and smells a little less petrochemical than Dan's honing oil for example. I think Sharpening Supplies honing oil is marked "food safe" as well, so it may be off-brand Norton oil.
I've also played around with vegetable oils. Olive oil works well from my experience, with grape seed oil being a little less viscous. Normally I use these with stones from the eastern Mediterranean area (Cretan, Vermio, and a block of Turkish sandstone actually found near the Black Sea) as that is what would probably be used there. One "oil" to avoid here would be jojoba oil, as it is actually a liquid wax that starts to clog the stone surface with continued use.
Did Yogie Berra say something like 'when I am not hitting, it cannot be my fault. It must be the bat, etc etc'.
I just failed to sharpen a knife to my expectations. It could not be my fault. Perhaps it is the knife's fault. Perhaps it is the stone's fault. It barely shaves, and struggles with paper.
It is one of my daughter's pocket knives, a cheap knife. The bevel was bad. One the second try I fixed the bevel. Failed with a natural stone. I will try a third time with another approach.
Sorry, when I said water with synths, I was thinking of Japanese-style water-hone synths. True it is that Crystalons and Indias are synthetic oil-stones. Sounds like yours might be some kind of carborundum or silicon carbide hone. In cases of known used stones, I usually go by what is recommended. Lacking this, I suggest soaking the stone in water to see if it gives off an oily slick. If so, then I would normally use it with oil. If not, then water. I have yet to use stones dry, practically-speaking.