Besides sharpening, is there any drawback to a recurve?

P

Pendexter

Joined
Aug 20, 2018
Messages
115
Hi BF,

I'm not sure if this should be in GKD or Maintenance & Tinkering, so please move if necessary.

I've been reading up on knives for about a year now, and one of the ideas that I got ingrained in my head is that recurves are not as good as straight for the portion of the blade between the ricasso and the belly, just like nylon washers are not as good as bearings (that's a whole 'nother discussion). If I see a new design with a recurve on it, I'm instantly turned off.

But I've been thinking about it and I may have been too hasty with my assessment. The only drawback I see with recurves is that they are moderately more difficult to sharpen when using flat sharpening stones. If using a Sharpmaker or a sharpening belt, there is no difference in difficulty.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that when I'm using the Ken Onion Worksharp, it will do two things that if you're not careful.
- round the tip
- put a recurve in your blade

I use a KO Worksharp and a Sharpmaker for my blades, and if I inadvertently put a slight recurve on my EDC, I'll actually grind away the rest of the blade to even/flatten it out. But why am I doing that?

Recurves
- increase the cutting edge per constant blade length
- increase the power of a draw cut due to the lower attack angle
- push material closer to the recurved radius, thus making a more efficient cut.

My EDC is a ZT0562, which has a flipper tab, so its not good on a cutting board with or without the recurve.

I'm not planning on purposefully putting a giant recurve on my blade, but letting it happen naturally and just accepting it. I might get a slight performance boost out of it. I'm thinking of something like the gentle curve on the Benchmade 710.

Thoughts?

(not my pic, from bladereviews)
OsZABrM.jpg
 
from my use of them.....they arent as bad as some folks make them out of be and on the flip side not as great as others like to think they are.
 
I guess the answer depends on the question that is asked.

So here are two specific questions with regards to edc folding knives only:

1. is there any downside to a recurve on a ZT0562? Because of the flipper and the thickness of the blade, it isn't designed for food prep so push cutting and food prep aren't high priorities for my specific edc blade. I'm thinking of letting a recurve develop as I sharpen on the KO Worksharp instead of focusing on preventing it from happening.

2. Do you care if there is a recurve in your EDC knives? If so, why? i.e. what are you doing with it that it makes a difference one way or the other. I'm talking specifically about EDC knives, not choppers or or kukuri's, etc. For example, I can imagine that a SpydieChef wouldn't perform as well with a recurve due to it's design choices, but most blades aren't that out of the box in terms of design.
 
jbmonkey said:
from my use of them.....they arent as bad as some folks make them out of be and on the flip side not as great as others like to think they are.
Click to expand...

I would agree with this. For me I don't believe the pros out weigh the cons. I've never used a knife and thought "man I wish this knife had a recurve." But I have thought "this knife would be better without a recurve." The 710 is an example of that I can deal with it but I can and prefer to live without it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top