How to sharpen a blade with a curve in the belly?

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wolverine_173

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do you need to do something special with a knife like this? sorry if its a bad question but im new to this stuff

 
I'm not really sure about how when using a flat stone. ( I have seen my friend sharpen his belly edges on a flat stone by using the edge.)
I sharpen my knives with slight bellies on my spyderco sharpmaker. Works very well because it uses triangle stones.
The sharpmaker is a great sharpener I recommend you check it out.
 
I use a Smith sharpening system because I am not that good free hand. I have a few knives with a belly like that, and it works fine.
 
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Using something like a dowel ( or a pringles can, something with a firm, round shape ) and wrapping sandpaper around it is what's often reccomended.

Using flat stone, you can TRY to use the corners if you're careful, and if it's a very wide curve like that then it should be more possible to work it onto the flat sections but it will take al ot of angle control
 
It's hard for me to explain it, but there are lots of videos online showing how to sharpen the curve.

The belly and tip were hard to learn in my experience and had to seek videos.
 
By changing the angle of the knife, you can sharpen a recurve on a flat stone. It takes a bit of practice and patience, but it is doable. Like Hwangjino said, it is rather hard to explain. If you are not confident in your freehand abilities, go with sandpaper around a dowel or a ceramic rod. A would advise against using the corner of a stone that you have not rounded, you will remove a lot of steel quick and could really mess up your edge.
 
I can sharpen my benchmade 710 using the corners of a DMT plate but for my more aggressive recurve's I just use my sharpmaker.
 
Bugout Bill said:
By changing the angle of the knife, you can sharpen a recurve on a flat stone. It takes a bit of practice and patience, but it is doable. Like Hwangjino said, it is rather hard to explain. If you are not confident in your freehand abilities, go with sandpaper around a dowel or a ceramic rod. A would advise against using the corner of a stone that you have not rounded, you will remove a lot of steel quick and could really mess up your edge.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's worth buying a cheaper knife to practice on like a CRKT Drifter. How would you go about stropping a recurve blade?
 
Jonny1801 said:
Maybe it's worth buying a cheaper knife to practice on like a CRKT Drifter. How would you go about stropping a recurve blade?
Click to expand...

look up the Butz strop in Woodcraft. It is built with an edge like the sharpmaker ceramic stones and works well.
 
Asking this exact question was on my "to-do" list as a new member to the forum.

When sharpening knives with inward and outward radii, my current practice is to use a flat stone on the outward radius, and a cylindrical stone on the inward radius. It works fine, but the problem I've encountered is the extremely limited grit selections of cylindrical stones, so it's possible to have different scratch patterns on those two sections of the blade.

Functionally the two different scratches don't make a difference that I can notice, except it looks weird. This can be mitigated by stropping with a hard felt wheel.

Here's an example of a cylindrical stone... there are several more offered by this vendor though:
http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAKA=317-1604&PMPXNO=19494990&PARTPG=INLMK32
 
blasto9000 said:
Asking this exact question was on my "to-do" list as a new member to the forum.

When sharpening knives with inward and outward radii, my current practice is to use a flat stone on the outward radius, and a cylindrical stone on the inward radius. It works fine, but the problem I've encountered is the extremely limited grit selections of cylindrical stones, so it's possible to have different scratch patterns on those two sections of the blade.

Functionally the two different scratches don't make a difference that I can notice, except it looks weird. This can be mitigated by stropping with a hard felt wheel.

Here's an example of a cylindrical stone... there are several more offered by this vendor though:
http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAKA=317-1604&PMPXNO=19494990&PARTPG=INLMK32
Click to expand...

Have you tried Congress Tools?


http://www.congresstools.com/catalog/categories/get-subcategory/?id=24
 
I only have one knife with a recurve blade (the ZT shown in 2nd pic) and I never carry/use it. I did make a rounded leather strop for recurves "just in case" and haven't even charged the strop with any compound yet. But if I ever need to touch up the blade I can do it without too much effort. I just cemented leather around 1" PVC.

I think that the SharpMaker should work well on recurves as other posters have said. I have absolutely no experience on stones...outta the ball park for me. As stated in many other places on this forum, strops refine already sharp knives and won't sharpen a dull knife. Just had a couple of pics hanging around so why not share them?



 
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