Sharpening Recurves

I

Ian Fifelski

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Oct 4, 2017
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I am changing my sharpening to whetstones and I am wondering if it is possible to shape the stone at all, so that recurves can be sharpened on it. If so, what could I use do shape it? I am thinking of rounding the corners and giving in a very slight radius.
 
I’ve been wondering this for a while, so I’m really curious to hear what others have to say. A radius’d stone would be nice, but I haven’t been able to find one...

Jeremy
 
You can roll the surface of your stone using a silicon carbide belt. Wear a good respirator, silicon carbide grit can cause silicosis.
Run the belt wet to reduce heat and dust. Your progress will vary greatly depending on the type of stone you are reshaping. Water stones would be the softest and ceramic most likely the hardest.
Unless you do a lot of recurve blades, save a lot of time and effort and roll the edge of the stone instead of the large flat. Then sharpenmo. the edge.
I suggest you try this on a inexpensive stone first.
Or you can wrap a sheet of sand paper around a piece of 3" pipe and use it on the occasions you need to sharpen a recurve.
Jim A.
 
gudspelr said:
I’ve been wondering this for a while, so I’m really curious to hear what others have to say. A radius’d stone would be nice, but I haven’t been able to find one...

Jeremy
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Same. I have heard that it is important to keep a whetstone flat, but I assume that means without little grooves/pits and a radius would be fine.
 
Kali4nia said:
Get round ceramic sticks... why reinvent the wheel?
Click to expand...

I’m not overly familiar with the ceramic sticks-do they come in different “grits” and different diameters? I’m definitely not interested in reinventing the wheel. If there are round ceramic sticks/stones of various grits, I’d be happy to look at them.

Jeremy
 
I think you can buy slips for curve edge relatively cheap with out round a flat stone out.
 
What type of recurve are you looking to sharpen. Large recurve knives are generally speaking chopping blades which would be better with a convex final bevel anyways. Sharpen those on the slack belt and hone with ceramic bar or strop with a leather belt not on a backer. You don’t need a super polished edge on a chopper. Save the whetstones in their flat perfection for knives that warrant that finer more polished edge.
 
For me, I’m thinking slight recurves in hunter sized blades, etc. Sometimes it’s just enough recurve that the flat stones won’t work...

Jeremy
 
lanternnate said:
What type of recurve are you looking to sharpen. Large recurve knives are generally speaking chopping blades which would be better with a convex final bevel anyways. Sharpen those on the slack belt and hone with ceramic bar or strop with a leather belt not on a backer. You don’t need a super polished edge on a chopper. Save the whetstones in their flat perfection for knives that warrant that finer more polished edge.
Click to expand...
I have been using a belt for all of my sharpening, but I am using the grizzly 2x72 and with how fast it runs, it can screw things up quick by overheating or removing too much material. I would like to move to stones for kitchen knives and hunters and knives with thinner geometry.
 
I have the Wicked-edge system, but didn't bother with the curved stones (which seem to only come in 600 grit anyway).
The regular stones are narrow enough that although for a curve you don't contact the entire edge at once, it still works just fine.
I sharpened both edges in this pic that way.
Hz8112T.jpg
 
Just for touch up sharpening on a small hunter or pocket knife, worksharp makes a guided sharpening system and a field guided sharpening system. Those aren’t overly expensive options. The former being slightly more expensive than the later. I have the larger guided sharpening system. It includes a ceramic rod insert that has two “grit” settings. It’s fine for touch up sharpening, but I wouldn’t try to set the initial secondary bevel with it.

If you are planning to do a lot of recurve blades it might be worth looking into setting yourself up a little 1” belt grinder that is slower than your grizz. If setting up a true grinder is currently out of reach, maybe look at the powered worksharp dealios. They have various models that would give you a basic little “belt grinder” with variable speed and grit options for about the same cost as a couple good stones.
 
If you enjoy hand sharpening with whetstones you'd likely have hoarded a bunch of them...but just actually use a couple of them you really love.
If that is the case, i'd suggest to select a couple of the ones you are not using too much and to make a radical radius on just one side of them.
 
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