Sharpening Recurves?

[Scandi Grind]

I have avoided recuve blades and hawkbills for some time now due to me not knowing of a particularly good way to sharpen them. The only thing I can think of is to use a rod to sharpen the recurved portion, and maybe that is all there is to it? Anyway, I wanted to consult the wider wisdom of the community. Any suggestions for sharpening recurves?

[dsvirsky]

A rod will work. The Sharpmaker will work better.

[VashHash]

I use a round ceramic rod or a triangle stone. I even found a diamond steel made by Dexter Russell for more aggressive sharpening. It has a more oval shape but it fits the recurve of most knives.

[Sharp Guy]

No problem with Sharpmaker

[wrdwrght]

Freehanding (which I prefer) on recurves and hawkbills is a challenge for me, but the Sharpmaker simplifies the challenge.

Once you learn what the Sharpmaker teaches, you can transfer new skills to freehanding.

[Traditional.Sharpening]

Sharpmaker is fine for apexing or very light touchups but for anything beyond this it generally would be preferable to use something like this curved waterstone from Naniwa. It will cut far more aggressively at any grit compared to Spyderco ceramics or even Diamond/CBT due to the fact that the stone releases abrasive to keep grit sharp and clean.

This means they may take more to maintain the shape of the stones but a decent flattening stone would do just fine. I recommend the Pink Aluminum Oxide one from Naniwa personally but not terribly important, IMO. The flattening stone will also wear over time and lose it's shape but it should happen VERY slowly with light and/or infrequent use on these stones.

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/prod ... s=e&_v=1.0

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/prod ... s=e&_v=1.0

[RustyIron]

For most of my sharpening, I use an EdgePro. The stones are 1" wide. You can sharpen the recurve and the corners of the stone will round off really quickly. Or you can round them off on a flattening stone before you start sharpening your recurve blade. It doesn't really matter which you choose, the results are the same, and you will get exactly the same sharpness as you would on a conventionally ground blade.

[vivi]

I have avoided recuve blades and hawkbills for some time now due to me not knowing of a particularly good way to sharpen them. The only thing I can think of is to use a rod to sharpen the recurved portion, and maybe that is all there is to it? Anyway, I wanted to consult the wider wisdom of the community. Any suggestions for sharpening recurves?

Corners of the sharpmaker rods make sharpening these blade shapes trivial.

PE is very straight forward.

But SE can be a little tricky.

If you look at a Spyderco serrated hawkbill or recurve closely, you'll notice the serrations all run parallel to one another.

So if you try to sharpen, say, a serrated Tasman Salt like a plain edged Tasman Salt, you'll do a bad job. With the serrations all running parallel you'll actually want to sharpen them like they were a wharncliffe.

It sounds weird at first but after trying out this technique it will make sense.

I agree with Traditional sharpening the sharpmaker isn't a very efficient way to reprofile these blade shapes.

For recurves I reprofile what I can with a regular bench stone, then use rods or even sandpaper wrapped around a dowel rod to hit the curved area.

[Scandi Grind]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[Evil D]

Trivial with a Sharpmaker, otherwise maybe the corner of a bench stone.

[N. Brian Huegel]

Gauntlet™ Premium: https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/detail ... emium/1202
-OR-
Galley-V™: https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/detail ... rade-/1897

nb

[Bill1170]

Gauntlet™ Premium: https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/detail ... emium/1202
-OR-
Galley-V™: https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/detail ... rade-/1897

nb

Agree. The cat eye CBN rods will reprofile all but the tightest recurves, and fast. The corners of the Sharpmaker rods will access small curves like the Spyderedge scallops.