I think you get better results with the crock stick style scraper sharpener than the carbide ones. I have a few of the cheap lansky pull through sharpeners with the two white ceramic sticks which snap into the holder in an 'X' shape. The angle on these is 45 deg, which is useful for touching up the edge of the kitchen knives i have that are sharpened to 30deg. This touch-up puts a 45 deg microbevel on the edge and this works well for a while until the edge gets too thick. Then the the knife gets reset on stones to 30deg.

Thank you for all the great info. As always, I have been "enlightened" by the experience of the members of this forum. I'm still relatively new to the idea of preparedness, and this is the best site I've found for real-life experience information.
LumpyJaw