TESTED: Diamond Stone 2-stage knife sharpener

Serious sharper

KNIFE sharpeners are such an underrated gadget for fishos. There’s not much point buying a quality blade and then treating it poorly, resulting in a blunt and damaged knife. A blunt knife is not only ineffective when it comes to its main purpose – filleting your catch – but is also dangerous. Knife sharpeners take many forms from simple, portable devices to electric models suitable for professional use. They all work with variable rates of success. If you’re serious about your knives and are willing to spend the time and money, an electric model could be for you. For the rest of us, the convenience of portability and ease of use tends to outweigh the results from an electric model.

The Diamond Stone knife sharpener lends itself ideally to this application. The Diamond Stone fits neatly in your tackle box or side pocket of a boat and can be operated single handedly for quick results. The other handy feature is corrosion resistance – this unit was designed specifically not to rust. A couple of small stainless steel screws, which are protected beneath a sturdy plastic cover, are the only metal parts. All other parts are either the strong non-slip plastic and of course the diamond and ceramic stones which do the job of sharpening. This sharpener features two sets of stones – blue and white. The idea is to draw the blade in its entire length through the blue stones several times, depending on how blunt your blade is. Once the blade is sharp, flip the sharpener over and use the white stones in the same way to achieve a polished finish. The result is a “hollow ground edge” to the blade, meaning the edge of the blade takes a concave shape on either side, resulting in an extremely sharp knife. The idea is very simple and, like most simple things, very effective. This is a very handy piece of equipment.

Contact: G&K Distributors 1300 737 176; www.gourmetandkitchen.com.au

By Scott Thomas