Hawkbills... specific application or general use?

I have a 4" Maxx custom DDR on order. It will most likely be the first hawkbill folder Darrel has made.
 
I have been using a Kershaw Talon II for the past 3 years as my go-to knife for everything. Best EDC I have ever owned - boxes, stripping wire, carving, whittling, gutting animals, you name it. Brilliant
 
Comeuppance said:
I've always strayed away from hawkbills because of edge maintenance concerns. It seems like it would be somewhat difficult to stop, or even throw on my wicked edge.
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Just use a dowel with some compound on it if you need to strop. You can use flat stones on forward curving blades, but only the edges of the stone will contact and wear. As a result it's usually better to use something like an oval diamond steel for those sharpening tasks unless you don't mind wearing the edges of the stone down. They're not hard to sharpen and maintain at all, but they do require a different approach than most folks are accustomed to.
 
My old Camillus was , I think, sold as a pruning knife and that's why I bought it . It has the number " 1 " on one side. But there is no reason why it can't be used for other purposes !
 
For about a year I carried a Spyderco P'kal for edc before my interests changed from an edc weapon to an edc tool. It was a rare occurance that my daily tasks were unsuited for the Hawkbill blade. Any that arose were easily handled by the SAK I carry daily, so while it wasn't the ideal tool for me, I wasn't significantly handicapping myself either. I really liked the agile tip of the Hawkbill for many tasks and have since grown fond of wharncliffe blades for the same reason.

If I found the right design I wouldn't hesitate to carry another hawkbill.
 
Aside from an Emerson Super Karambit, I've got 2 other folders that are more like recurve wharncliffes than hawkbills. They're excellent utility cutters.

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[video=youtube;1LYxDUPw3Mc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LYxDUPw3Mc[/video]
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Just use a dowel with some compound on it if you need to strop. You can use flat stones on forward curving blades, but only the edges of the stone will contact and wear. As a result it's usually better to use something like an oval diamond steel for those sharpening tasks unless you don't mind wearing the edges of the stone down. They're not hard to sharpen and maintain at all, but they do require a different approach than most folks are accustomed to.
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Personally, the Sharpmaker is the best for a hawkbill, particularly one with serrations. The edges of the triangle rods were designed for curved blades and serrations. With a Sharpmaker hawkbills are as easy to sharpen as a straight knife.

When I was a kid, I first learned about hawkbills because my uncle gave me one in ~1970. He was a cop and took it from a man who was fighting another (smacked the guy with the knife in the head with his billy club, took the knife, but since it was the end of shift, did not arrest either man.) He said that the "linoleum" knife was popular on the NY city streets because it was a work knife and not a straight blade, thus it was more legal. You had a work reason to carry it and since it was curved, it is not classified as a dirk/dagger.
 
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