What is the benenfit of a Recurve Blade?

flipe8

flipe8

Joined
Oct 24, 2005
Messages
2,823
Hi guys. I'm not talking about the Harpy or some of the similar radical recurves, but rather ones like on the Emerson Commander. I see a number a manufacturers are makng them now and I was just wondering how they add to the cutting performance. Thanks.
 
I may be wrong, but I think the idea is that they are much better at causing damage in a fight.
 
A recurved blade, above all else, tends to 'bite' into whatever you're cutting more aggressively. It also tends to make the blade a tad more 'weight forward'. I love recurves, but have found them to be considerably harder to sharpen (especially when the blade gets to be over 7 inches...then it is even a pain on a Sharpmaker).
 
They are harder to sharpen but not that difficult (think sharpening the curve on a drop point blade.) I like them because they work really well for food prep and for long cuts.
 
A bit more edge length in a given total length. The "bite" in the cutting action is that the curved blade drops a bit behind the material being cut often giving more cutting surface to work with a cutting stroke. It can improve the cutting action in some cases.

But I think the recurve is over-rated and has more minuses than positives.

Phil
 
I normally don't like recurves, but I have noticed that they're great for cutting up large amounts of cardboard. The recurve helps keep the edge from wandering during the cut.
 
phatch said:
A bit more edge length in a given total length. The "bite" in the cutting action is that the curved blade drops a bit behind the material being cut often giving more cutting surface to work with a cutting stroke. It can improve the cutting action in some cases.

But I think the recurve is over-rated and has more minuses than positives.

Phil
Click to expand...

Besides the learning curve for sharpening what disadvatages?
 
BigJimSlade said:
Besides the learning curve for sharpening what disadvatages?
Click to expand...

scares away potential buyers who aren't ready for radical blade shapes :cool:

are we talking kershaw blade shapes, or spyderco civilian or cricket here ?
Recurves add a lot of cutting area , and offer the hooking ability of a hawkbill without sacrificing the point, and isolates areas of the edge so one area can stay sharp while you abuse the other

if its the spyderco cricket shape, its a hawkbill with added edge length

if its a large chopper, it puts more weight forward
 
penls said:
scares away potential buyers who aren't ready for radical blade shapes :cool:

are we talking kershaw blade shapes, or spyderco civilian or cricket here ?
Recurves add a lot of cutting area , and offer the hooking ability of a hawkbill without sacrificing the point, and isolates areas of the edge so one area can stay sharp while you abuse the other

if its the spyderco cricket shape, its a hawkbill with added edge length

if its a large chopper, it puts more weight forward
Click to expand...

If the numbers on Kershaws designed by Ken Onion is what happens when you scare customers away I need to start scaring the crap out of people. ;)
 
I have a BM 710.... it's a more subtle recurve ... and pretty easy to
sharpen. It's a great cutter. I guess you could think
of a recurve blade as a really big serration. :-)
 
Note that the harpy doesn't have a profile we would normally call recurve. It has a hawkbill blade. The khukuri is an example of a recurve blade. It has a convex area near the front of the blade.

Both are slashing blades. Tactical. Neither offer any advantages for general cutting applications.
 
Knife Outlet said:
Note that the harpy doesn't have a profile we would normally call recurve. It has a hawkbill blade. The khukuri is an example of a recurve blade. It has a convex area near the front of the blade.

Both are slashing blades. Tactical. Neither offer any advantages for general cutting applications.
Click to expand...

I dunno about not having advantages for general cutting apps. Hawkbills keep the material they're cutting inside the curve of the blade, but, of course, at the expense of several other things. If I was cutting flexible material all day (rope, for instance), I'd probably choose a hawkbill over a drop point or a Wharncliffe. Of course, there're applications where I wouldn't use a hawkbill, but there are quite a few in which I would.

As for recurves, I see them more as hawkbills that do more, assuming the hawkbill section is big enough.
 
TH, Wharncliff is my favorite blade style. It will do anything a hawkbill will do and will do more. To me the hawkbill is for appearance, not practicality. Yes, linoleum knives have a hawkbill blade but they could just as well have a wharncliff with no loss of fuctionality.

I would agree that the recurve is more useful than the hawkbill but I don't see anything that it can do better than a clip or drop point except slash in a knife fight. Or, if you want to be fussy, it can cut with a more acute angle between the hand and the object to be cut.

I understand the general interest in things tactical but, hopefully, nobody on the forum actually has to use a knife that way. So it makes sense to have the knives be practical all around cutters. That way they may not look as mean but they will be more practical.

I also undertand the vagaries of fashion but plenty of practical all around cutters are also fashionable.
 
BigJimSlade said:
Besides the learning curve for sharpening what disadvatages?
Click to expand...

Take the food prep angle for example. With a recurve, when you bring the edge down, it doesn't cut through the material all the way. You have to draw the knife back in the cut to complete the cut. This is true in any cut made against a flat surface where a recurve increases the work to make the cut.

I find recurves more difficult to use in fine control cuts. The kinesthetic sense of where the rest of blade is is often thrown off by the recurve.

Besides learning to sharpen a recurve, they require special equipment to sharpen compared to standard blade shapes. With the sharpmaker for instance, you can't polish a recurve edge as other edges simply because the recurve can't be sharpened on the flats.

The increased cutting efficiency is smaller than claimed in my experience too. Simply angling the blade in the cut can achieve many of the gains claimed for a recurve.
 
I disagree strongly with the idea that the cutting advantage of the recurve is in the slightest way related to the slightly increased edge length the recurve produces. The way a recurve is used, the biggest slicing advantage comes at the curved portion, where you can get serrated-blade level performance is you sharpen right. The curve forces the material into the edge and provides significant cutting advantage. Typically, the rest of the edge is not used, as the best cutting action happens in the recurve. As a result, not only is the recurve's advantage not related to any extra edge length, I'd argue that in typical use, you use less of the recurve's edge than you would a straight blade's edge. With a recurve, the advantage is in the curve, so you place the material there and pull.
 
phatch said:
Take the food prep angle for example. With a recurve, when you bring the edge down, it doesn't cut through the material all the way. You have to draw the knife back in the cut to complete the cut. This is true in any cut made against a flat surface where a recurve increases the work to make the cut.

I find recurves more difficult to use in fine control cuts. The kinesthetic sense of where the rest of blade is is often thrown off by the recurve.

Besides learning to sharpen a recurve, they require special equipment to sharpen compared to standard blade shapes. With the sharpmaker for instance, you can't polish a recurve edge as other edges simply because the recurve can't be sharpened on the flats.

The increased cutting efficiency is smaller than claimed in my experience too. Simply angling the blade in the cut can achieve many of the gains claimed for a recurve.
Click to expand...

I would agree with kitchen knives but thats the reason you dont see recurve kitchen knives much if at all.

I have never had trouble controlling a cut with any of my recurve blades but that may be a personal thing. I can skiv leather with a KO recurve blade and keep the thickness even.

I require no special equipment to sharpen any knife I have, all it takes is some practice.

I would aggree that the difference in cutting length and bite is not night and day different but it is there and does offer more cut length that angling your blade cannot give you.

I do not think there is any disadvatage to non tactical use of a recurve and kershaw sales would support the idea that recurve blades work for average users blades just fine. Not all recurves are extreme either. Alot of blades have a mellow recurve.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top