They're really not. All you need is an angle guide you stick to the knife. Something like https://setamono.co.za/products/knife-sharpening-angle-retai...

With that all you need to do is pretty much go back and forth. Note that the whetstone eventually wears them out too.

Something to grab while you're at it, is a truing stone to take care of the whetstone as it _will_ wear out unevenly making the sharpening a pain.

I used to sharpen my straight-knife planer blades, planing irons, chisels, and knives with whetstones / water stones. It was too big of a pain in the ass over time, so I switched to diamond stones.

Biggest advantages is that you don't need to pre-soak them and diamond stones don't develop a valley / have to be flattened.

if you plan on getting into sharpening I would just start with a coarse, fine, and extra fine diamond stone and a leather strop w/ stropping compound.

Whetstones were hard 20 years ago. Right now there is abundance of quality info and products. The community actually figured out idiotproof and effective ways to deburr, to strop, resin bound diamond stones are affordable (or even cheap if you just buy the abrasive from China and go the diy route).