ZT 0350 Recurve Sharpening

T

TronPlayer

Joined
Aug 16, 2013
Messages
8
Hi Guys,

I recently purchased a ZT 0350 (not received yet) and I wanted some tips on sharpening since it has a small recurve on it. I assume I can't use regular stones so my biggest question is what should I use to sharpen it? Any additional tips would be much appreciated.
 
I have several recurve blades of varying degrees. I sharpen all of them with my chef's diamond rods. You can Google DMT diamond sharpening rods, or just "diamond sharpening rods" and come up with other makers as well. I bought a medium and an extra fine, and they take care of all my needs.

I use a Kershaw Tremor a lot at work and it has a fairly pronounced recurve. A few licks on the rods and it is back to snuff easily. Same with my Kershaw Tyrade, and the opposite of a recurve, the Junkyard Dog II. It's large belly makes it hard to sharpen on stones, but easy on the long chef's rods. A few (or several!) swipes on the rods do the trick, and for a tune up I just use the extra fine.

I have been sharpening my kitchen knives and all my recurves on rods for years. As far as reliability and durability go, before my last set of rods wore out after about 10 years after literally thousands of sharpenings of kitchen knives, camp knives, and of course my recurves.

If you have any experience with freehand sharpening at all, the rods make a recurve a snap to sharpen. Even if you don't, rods are so easy and intuitive to use it makes sharpening different shapes a breeze.

Robert
 
richard j said:
tronplayer, i sharpen a lot of recurves. if you want some help i would be glad to give you a call if you send me your number. i made a post in this thread on how to use a pringles can to sharpen a recurve. check it out. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/895816-sharpening-a-folding-sog-vulcan
Click to expand...

richard to the rescue!

I read the thread about the Pringles can sharpener, and I thought it was ingenious. Just shows what a master of his game can really do!

A great read, I would suggest that anyone with recurve sharpening problems read richard's post. Good stuff!

Robert
 
midnight flyer said:
richard to the rescue!

I read the thread about the Pringles can sharpener, and I thought it was ingenious. Just shows what a master of his game can really do!

A great read, I would suggest that anyone with recurve sharpening problems read richard's post. Good stuff!

Robert
Click to expand...

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I may indeed use his service down the road but I also want to learn all I can as well.
 
The ZT-0350's recurve can be sharpened with narrower flat stones, such as the 1/2" wide flats of the triangular rods of a Sharpmaker (corners can obviously be used as well). I used a Lansky set to re-bevel mine, and it's stones are the same width.

My go-to method for recurves would be wet/dry sandpaper firmly wrapped around a cylinder or rod. On sandpaper, I'd use edge-trailing (stropping) strokes. Any dowel, pipe, jar or other cylindrical object could be used. I'd use as hard a backing as possible, with the sandpaper; a tall glass jar or a steel pipe would handle that very well. That'll work more efficiently with the ZT's S30V blade. Lighter maintenance touch-ups can always be done with ceramic rods (or better yet, diamond rods).


David
 
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