All About Pocket Knives

cody6268 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:40 am What about something to sharpen recurves? I'm having a ton of trouble not only with hawkbills/pruning knives, but also some tactical designs with recurve blade profiles, like the Kershaw Chive for example. The round ceramic stone on the Worksharp Guided Field Sharpener will do great if the edge is in good shape, and not blunt, but if the edge is blunt, or in rough shape, it's not aggressive enough?

Something like the DMT diamond tapered rods?

I haven't tried it but I have looked at Lansky's rod.
Bii

cody6268 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:40 am What about something to sharpen recurves? I'm having a ton of trouble not only with hawkbills/pruning knives, but also some tactical designs with recurve blade profiles, like the Kershaw Chive for example. The round ceramic stone on the Worksharp Guided Field Sharpener will do great if the edge is in good shape, and not blunt, but if the edge is blunt, or in rough shape, it's not aggressive enough?

Something like the DMT diamond tapered rods?

As long as the edge of your stone is good and square, that's where I sharpen the recurved portion of the blade. I find that often overlapping straight passes on the stone give me better results that a swiping motion. That way you can focus more on the areas that need the most attention and keep everything nice and even. It all depends on the shape and condition of the blade. YMMV.

thankgod4rkids wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:29 am

cody6268 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:40 am What about something to sharpen recurves? I'm having a ton of trouble not only with hawkbills/pruning knives, but also some tactical designs with recurve blade profiles, like the Kershaw Chive for example. The round ceramic stone on the Worksharp Guided Field Sharpener will do great if the edge is in good shape, and not blunt, but if the edge is blunt, or in rough shape, it's not aggressive enough?

Something like the DMT diamond tapered rods?

I haven't tried it but I have looked at Lansky's rod.
Bii

That Lansky’s rod appears to be a ceramic rod. If so it’s likely no different than the ceramic rod that comes as part of the Worksharp Guided Sharpening System. The handles are different of course but based on his comments I think the ceramic rod isn’t aggressive enough for his purposes - looking for something with courser grit. Wade’s recommendation (edge/corner of a stone) is a good solution. Haven’t tried it myself though. Can’t think of a single recurve blade in my pile.

Ken

As the Reverand mentioned, practice on "less valuable" knives before working on any high dollar knives.

It doesn't matter what method you use, practice is paramount, Otherwise you end up with a messed up knife and a sour taste in your mouth for whatever type of stone or system your screwed up with. I'm convinced that 90+% of all bad reviews for sharpening systems is due to operator error.

What I did when learning to sharpen knives for real (not just the basics my grandfather taught me), I went down to the junk store and bought a pile of old dinner knives for about 5¢@ and practiced, practiced, practiced. Once I could get a hair shaving edge on a piece of crap stainless steel dinner knife, I knew I was safe for working on my "real" knives. That was done on one of those old timey 3 stone triangular setups.

When I went to learn how to use 1"x24" and a 2"x72" belt grinders, I did the same thing, except it was at a Goodwill and I ended up paying like $1.20@. Sometimes you get lucky and get them for as little as 25¢ or 50¢ if your local Goodwill has had a lot of old dinner ware turned in. Junk practice sharpening knives are just about the only reason I go to a Goodwill now. The other reason is to get old leather belts for use as strops, leather handle disks, etc.