Recurves

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KennyB

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Jan 19, 2010
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How do you guys deal with recurves? Do you just put a serviceable "good enough" edge on it? Do you just sharpen all the portions of the blade except the recurve? Do you somehow adapt your current sharpening technique?

They irritate me because I only have a benstone and a strop and don't really have anything that works really well for sharpening them, so I always wind up with an unsharpened recurved portion of my blade. I did manage to get my hands on a rounded hone, but the finish isn't as fine as my benchstone and it's hard to keep the angle the same along the entire blade.

Anyway, luckily I only have one knife with a recurve, but I need to learn how to deal with them in an easier way.
 
I don't buy them. Never had a problem sharpening one since I started. When I did have them, I used a Norton stone with one corner rounded off, a Sharpmaker, a belt sander over the slack portion, EZE Lap diamond rod and ceramic stick, sandpaper taped to a dowel rod, and some other improvised stuff. I found no cutting advantage, they were a pain to sharpen, so I sold them all, except the Kukri Machete. It gets the treatement with a flat file, since it's curve is gradual enough for this to work. Either the file or the belt sander.
 
KennyB said:
How do you guys deal with recurves? Do you just put a serviceable "good enough" edge on it? Do you just sharpen all the portions of the blade except the recurve? Do you somehow adapt your current sharpening technique?
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My EDC has been a recurve for years. Benchmade 710. Two to three times a year I'll put it on the EdgePro for a full sharpening. The rest of the time I just touch it up on a Sharpmaker if I've been using it heavily, using the flat sides of the stones, and normally just strop it using different compounds, turning the blade to match the curve to the stones and strops.

If you're having difficulties, let me suggest that you pick up a one or two inch dowel, and several different grits of wet/dry sandpaper. Wrap the sandpaper around the dowel and use that to sharpen. That's what I have to do do some of my Indonesian kris knives becuase they have an actual double U-turn along the blade edge! I'll rub compound directly on to the dowel's sides and use it to finish the sharpening.

They irritate me because I only have a benstone and a strop and don't really have anything that works really well for sharpening them, so I always wind up with an unsharpened recurved portion of my blade.
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I think you'll find that sharpening with wet/dry sandpaper (200, 320, 600, 1,000, 2,000 grits) will give you a damn good edge and only cost about a buck or two all together. The dowels might cost another dollar. For less than $4 you've got yourself a good sharpening kit for recurves. Lay the sandpaper out flat on a glass table top and you can sharpen all the rest of the knives in your house at the same time!! :D

Stitchawl
 
You guys beat me to it! I was going to recomend dowel and sandpaper.

I took a Pringles can and taped different grits of sandpaper to it, then wrapped leather around it to strop, on a large kukri that I reprofiled. Worked great, shaves hair just fine now.
 
Heh, that Pringles can idea is a good one, I never thought of that because I was using the biggest dowel rod I could find from a closet. Too bad I can't stick my Popeye arms in a Pringles can though.

I bought 1/2 inch wide stones for my Edge Pro and they work well on the two recurves I have tried them on, a Tyrade and a ZT0350. I believe the 0350 has the most curve to it and its the shortest recurve knive I have. I was able to make more contact behind the curve towards the handle than I could with the regular 1 inch stones.

My slotted paper wheel has one side kind of rounded already from touching up my recurves but I want to get some narrower shaper wheels eventually.
 
I sharpened my Kershaw Shallot just fine on my paper wheels, though the knife doesn't really have too much of a curve to it. The REAL test will be when I get my ZT 350CB, though I suspect it would do just as well, if a little trickier.
 
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