What's up with recurves?

I'm in the market for a high end sharpening system. I see that the edge stops before the plunge on your 710. Is that a limitation of the Edge Pro?

It appears I'm pretty much relegated to the Edge Pro or the Wicked Edge from what I can tell.

Anything better?


The Edge Pro eats recurves as if they were peanut M&Ms, I have no issues with a recurve ;)
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Actually, the thumbstuds were in the way based on the position I started in. I did not feel like doing the "ground angled thumbstud" mod as other people have seen.:barf:
The cutting edge was almost all the way to the handle. That 710 was my 3rd knife on the EP. I do like the EP just fine, I really do not like any of the clamp style systems.
 
I'm in the market for a high end sharpening system. I see that the edge stops before the plunge on your 710. Is that a limitation of the Edge Pro?

It appears I'm pretty much relegated to the Edge Pro or the Wicked Edge from what I can tell.

Anything better?

I'll pull out the thumbstuds if I'm going to be making an angle that will hit them. Easy 'nuff to do.
Think the EP has narrower stones that work pretty well on recurves.
 
recurves aren't bad I understand why some dont like them, but they have their uses. the large belly cuts well, and if it is a deeper recurve it can aid in cutting towards you because it pulls the material towards you .

Also you can get a nice belly on a drop point, lending a comprimise between a usefull tip, and a large belly. and they aren't that hard to sharpen.
 
A recurve blade slices better than a flat blade because the blade shape presents an ever changing angle to the material being cut without having to bend your wrist. The inward curving part of the blade also helps gather the materials such as rope and the sweep of the blade assists in the cut during the draw stroke. On a larger blade the extra mass on a recurve makes a sweet spot for chopping.

The trade off is the fact that a recurve is a bit more technical to sharpen and doing a push cut on a flat surface will not place the entire area of a flat blade against the cutting surface. I'd think that would mainly be an issue with kitchen knives used for dicing, but I've used a few different recurves in the kitchen just for fun without any issues.



Very well stated my friend.

A recurve can be an slicing machine.


I think the changing angle of attack is the key to the way it cuts most materials.


A few of mine:








Sharpening recurves has not been a problem for me.




Big Mike
 
i dont really mind a recurved blade. i think it adds a nice design element to certain knives. but of course, regardless of the blade shape, if i like the knife, i like the knife.
 
Sharpened my first hawkbill blade on the EP for a friend at a New Years party. Alas, it even took a beautiful mirror polish but no pictures were taken. It wasn't very difficult- used the 1/2" stones and took my time and there was a lot of rotating the blade, but with a few mental notes I kept the edge in the right place as I turned the blade and it came out great.

With that said, my interest in hawkbill blades has gone up as I'm no longer put off about sharpening them.
 
My ceramic stones are 2 1/2' wide, and my diamond "stones" are 4" wide. Needless to say I do not like recurves. I removed the recurve on my Benchmade 710. I am trying to figure out how remove the recurve on my Kershaw S110V Shallots. I got rid of a Camillus Talonite EDC because of the recurve. A pox on recurves.
 
I guess I'm in the minority - I like recurves. I have no "problems" with them in use or in sharpening. I like how they look too. I have a Zero Tolerance ZT0300, A Kershaw Blur CB and Benchmade 710-D2 as my recurve-bladed folders and love them. The ZT0300 is my favorite of all my knives.
 
I don't have any real feelings either way. As said though, I don't think I would be interested in a deep recurve. Of the edc's I have, three are recurves; Ontario Retribution 1, ZT0200, and my Mike Irie Model 11 Spearpoint. As long as I have my Spyderco Sharpmaker, I'm ok with sharpening. I will say that the Edge Pro is looking better everytime I see something like RD posted. That Kershaw's edge looks AWESOME!:thumbup::)
 
Recurves..i love them!...in my humble opinion,nothing beats a recurve for taking the hocks off deer or opening the belly up...a little harder to sharpen but no big issue...
 
..my theory is, somebody figured a way to "fix" bad grinds made by the trainees/hungover Monday morning workers and then had the impudence to foster them onto the gullible/unsuspecting public. Brilliant actually. :p
 
You have to keep in mind that BF members don't necessarily represent the majority of knife buyers. We're just the pickiest. There are plenty of folks that buy, use and/or collect knives that never make it to the forums.
 
I don't like recurves at all, just because they're much more difficult to sharpen (especially with benchstones and the sandpaper/mousepad technique, which are my go-to sharpening methods) and, in my experience, don't offer any practical benefit to offset the added difficulty. For my uses, recurve blades don't seem to cut any better than non-recurve blades.

Aesthetically, a well done recurve looks friggin' wicked. Some of them look really cool, but I generally prefer form to follow function.
 
I figure the reason they're still so prevalent is because of non knife guys impulse buys. like combo edge blades. Clearly there is a massive preference for non recurved, and non combo edges on knives by people who actually know what they want in a knife.

This isn't saying either of these things are "bad", just saying why I think they seem to sell so much while being seemingly unpopular.
 
I really do wish some of the mainstream manufacturers made more 100% straight edged knives.
It's more utilitarian from my perspective.
Bellies and recurves are my primary beefs with most knives intended for the worker.

I agree. I know Spyderco has made an assortment of wharnie type blades in the past, not sure if they still produce any currently. Discontinuing the Centofante 4 broke my heart (though it enabled me to buy one for ~$30 :D )

Kershaw has the NeedsWork which is interesting, but the blade:handle angle nullifies the tip forward aspect of most wharnies that I love. Love the Leek's modified wharnie type blades, too.
 
MMMMM...... recurve.

Here's a recurve I can (have and will) use hard.

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It hasn't always been a recurve, it used to look like this:

preopknife.jpg


I call it a camp knife experiment. Seems to be going well. I have to remember to be careful wiping off the blade because I keep shaving off layers of skin.
 
I don't like recurves for most of what I use my knives for, however I can see the added functionality they offer and the compromise from what I've observed using them. As some others noted, the way they offer more belly just behind the tip, and then plunge back allows the same amount of cutting engagement but with a more natural offset angle between your wrist and the material. So if you were holding the blade at 45 degrees to a piece of cardboard to draw cut through it, you could hold it at a more shallow 20-30 degree offset and not have to angle your wrist up as much. It also helps when plunge cutting thick material like meat, Styrofoam, upholstery foam, etc because there's this huge belly cutting very deep with the wrist at a more natural offset.

I don't really hate recurves, but I definitely don't like them for EDC. For specialty chores it's nice to have one, but sharpening them to the standards I like my EDCs is usually a chore unless I just reprofile and get rid of the recurve. Otherwise using something like a coarse rod fixes up most of my specialty knives for what I need them... I have some that cut up Styrofoam and cardboard, and one in my kitchen for a steak knife.

I think it's impossible to deny that there's also a bit of stylizing going on too. I mean, all the function that the recurve offers, so does my drop-point Izula simply because of the blade-to-handle offset.
 
I like recurves when cutting on surfaces, opening boxes etc.
 
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