By Steve Starling

Sharp knives, or rather the lack of them, seem to have been the bane of my fishing life. I suspect that many other anglers are in the same boat. There never seems to be a really sharp knife at hand when you most need one. Over the years, I’ve tried all manner of solutions. Laboriously sharpening dull knives using various whetstones, steels and other devices works to some extent, but I’m damned if I can ever get those edges back to anything like their as-new state. In the end, I reconciled myself to buying a procession of budget to mid-priced filleters, enjoying their keen edges while new, then retiring them to the role of bait knives or “loaners” as they dulled and buying a replacement. Not a perfect system,
but better than anything else I could come up with!
Then along came the Nirey KE-3000 electric knife sharpener. This neat machine has changed my life! I’d always resisted electric knife sharpeners in
the past, having been told yonks ago that they were bad for your blades.
That may have been the case once, but Nirey has revolutionised the art of electric knife sharpening!
There are currently three models in the Australian Nirey range. The KE-198 is rated as a recreational sharpener, for home use when only a few knives a month may need to be touched up. The one I have, the KE-3000 is listed as a professional sharpener, suited to more regular use on large numbers of knives.
At the top of the tree is the KE-280 commercial sharpener which, as its name implies, is suited to heavy duty commercial work in restaurants, butchers’ shops and the like, and even by tradesmen offering a professional blade-sharpening service to other businesses.
All I can say is that there is no longer a dull knife in the Starling household: from the kitchen knife block to the filleting kit in my boat. Every blade would now easily shave hair from your arm!
I really can’t speak highly enough of the Nirey KE-3000, but I should also stress that you must read the instructions and watch the short instructional DVD that comes with the unit before using it; otherwise you run the risk of cutting grinding belts and otherwise struggling. Trust me on this: don’t do the “boy thing” and skip the manual. Ten minutes of boning up (pardon the pun!) will truly give you the edge (oh dear, there I go again!).