Stropping a hawkbill blade

[HFinn]

The curve of the hawkbill can make sharpening it challenging. I have a Spyderco Tasman Salt. It is new, but I touched up the blade anyhow, a round ceramic rod seems to work well. Stropping is another matter.

What I had in mind is to get a round wooden dowel or a small lenght of plastic tube and glue a piece of leather on it, so getting a curved surface to strop the knife. What do you think about this, could it work? How do you sharpen your hawkbill blades?

 

[HeavyHanded]

Have had good luck using a single layer of masking tape on a butchers steel - apply compound to that. Realistically, you could just work the edge of a leather strop - it should be more than conformable enough to reach the edge. I sharpen the hawkbill edges just like a recurve - use the rounded long edge of any stone (all my hard stones have one long edge rounded off a bit for inside curves), or sandpaper wrapped tight around a dowel will work too. Have to take your time and make sure you're getting good contact across the bevel, observe often.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Even compound directly applied to a dowel can work great. No paper or leather at all. In fact, these days I'm favoring stropping directly on wood, so this is what I'd likely do. For coarser work, the sandpaper as suggested by HH works great as well.

I'd suggest using a larger diameter dowel (or other cylinder) that more closely approximates the radius of the recurve. Distributing the contact over a wider area can help stabilize everything, which makes controlling angle easier. Also reduces contact pressure, which helps in minimizing burrs.


David

 

[L2bravo]

Ingenuity and creativity in sharpening is never a bad thing. HH, and OWE, I always look forward to reading you guy's posts.