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I grew up on stones. Used all kinds of them but honestly the belt system is so much faster and easier. If you are familiar with sharpening on stones then the belt system has a short learning curve. Check out this link. Game changer
Interesting upgrade as I was not too keen on the original design as it appeared that with too much pressure on the belt, you could easily round-over the edge. I wonder if WS will come out with a plate like overly expensive, 3-D printed one? They did with the WS3000, which I do own for woodworking tools. How easy it is to overheat an edge?
From my other hobbies, wood workiing, and collecting and using straight razors, I have used many brands of water stones.
My favorite waterstones for kitchen knives are the Naniwa chosera line. I like the green 1000 grit and the blue 600 grit for kitchen work. The Shapton glass stones would be my second choice.
I keep diamond hones in the kitchen all of the time, those are my daily drivers. I prefer the Atoma line. pretty much any brand of diamond stones will work, once they are broken in. DMT and even the cheap Aliexpress diamond hones work just fine.
I do not go very high on the grits on my kitchen knives. I do not like a highly polished edge for vegetables or meat.
For two water stones I would say a 600 and a 1000. A diamond hone will take a lot of the work and shorten the time needed to establish the primary edge. If I were starting from scratch I would get a 400 grit diamond atoma and a 600 grit waterstone.
Any thoughts on whether the swarf is bad to put down the sink? My first thought is there would not be enough at any given time to make much difference, but I could be wrong.
Nothing I've ever worried about, it's pretty minimal. If I was on a septic system and not a city line I might be concerned. I just make sure it's on the sink side and not the disposal side, if you have one.