Ceramic rod sharpeners, also known as crock sticks, are completely different than bench stones. The rods are held in a vee at a predetermined angle, and the blade is brought down against them in a slicing motion. You can manually make deviations from the set angle by tilting the blade.

Unfortunately mamy of these sharpeners come with only one grade of rods so they have limited use. An exception is the Tri-angle Sharpmaker from Spyderco. The set comes with two pairs of ceramic rods, medium and fine.  Each rod is triangular and can be mounted to use the faster cutting corner or the smoother cutting flat side, effectively giving 4 different sharpening actions.  At one time a pair of medium diamond sleeves was available for pre-sharpening, and Spyderco has promised to make them available again. A fishhook groove, a scissors position and a flat position extend the Tri-angle Sharpmaker for special uses. The Tri-angle Sharpmaker comes with a good instruction book, and an instructional video is available.

They also make a handy folding ceramic rod sharpener called Fold-A-Vee.  It folds for easy carrying and features two angle settings for filet and hunting knives.
 
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