Sharpening a recurved blade

[Orv]

I'm having a hard time getting this old knife sharp. It has a recurved blade. I'm currently trying to use the corners on the sharp maker. Is there a better way?

 

[G. Scott H.]

Sounds like you may need to develop some fresh bevels on it, possibly going to lower angles to match the angles on the SM. A dowel with wet/dry sandpaper wrapped around it or the edge of a regular bench stone are common methods. Here's a vid of the latter:

[video=youtube;aMJ4kLKoxu8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJ4kLKoxu8[/video]

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Any rod-type sharpener works pretty well. Round or oval diamond or ceramic 'steels', similar to those used for kitchen knives, can work very well. Can also wrap some silicon carbide or aluminum oxide sandpaper (such as the wet/dry type) around any cylindrical object, like a section of pipe. The harder the cylinder, and the more firmly-affixed the sandpaper is around it, the crisper the edges will be (use edge-trailing strokes with sandpaper). The biggest advantage to doing it this way is, you'll be able to choose the radius of the cylinder to more closely approximate the curvature of your recurve.

Some narrower flat hones can also be used, but you'll still need to be careful with pressure, to avoid over-stressing the edge on the edges/corners of the flat hone (as with the Sharpmaker).


David