Problem Sharpening a recurved blade with Sharpmaker!

[Redhook]

I need a little help or at least to find out if this is common. I'm attempting to sharpen a recurve blade, Microtech Kestral to be exact, on my Sharpmaker. I'm only using the stone edges as recommended. The problem is that I can't seem to get the last 1" of the blade very sharp. The other two inches are hair popping sharp, but the tip just seems to be utility sharp. I've already done two 15 stroke passes with both the coarse and fine stones. Should I keep going?



I know the tip gets far more use than the rest of the blade, but I would have expected it to come back sooner than this. The blade wasn't that dull to start with.



Thanks!

-Red-

[Joe Talmadge]

First, you should be using a magic marker on the edge to get a better idea of what's going on. If you're sharpening that front belly part but the magic marker isn't disappearing totally, then there's an angle mismatch. In my experience, it is not at all uncommon for production recurved blades to have a bigger angle at that belly-to-tip part than elsewhere, and the magic marker will tell you that immediately.

The other thing to do is, make sure the part of the edge that is hitting the stone is parallel to the ground. That means that when you're sharpening the belly-to-tip part of the edge, you'll be lifting the handle of the knife upwards.

It's okay to do the initial reprofiling of a recurved blade in sections. In fact, that's the way I do it. If you're having trouble with the belly-to-tip portion, just keep grinding that portion. I personally don't subscribe to the 15-stroke-passes theory of sharpening, it's common to end up with one part of the blade being sharper than another, with this method. I'd marker-up the belly-to-tip part, then stroke one side only until you have a burr along the entire length of the other side, then switch sides and repeat. *Then* switch to full-length strokes once you've got the basic reprofiling done.

Joe

[Joe Talmadge]

One thing to add! If you are doing your re-profiling in pieces -- e.g., concentrating just on the belly-to-tip part as I suggested above -- you do <b>not </b> need to just use the corners of the stones. In fact, any time you're working near the tip, using the corners of the stones is less-than-optimal, because the tip can slip off the corner, and eventually get badly rounded. Do your reprofiling with the flats of the stones for this area.

[Mancer]

mmmm yummy, that kestral's quite a nice lewkin piece, luv em hakbill shaped blades.
Anyways I got a number of hawbills (5) including matriarch's,civiies n harpys.
I battled at 1st but developed my own way to get them razor sharp.
My prob was also the tip, specially since they serated all the way except that last 1 cm tip which is straight.
What I do on my hawkbills is the following, I dont know if it might work on a kestral, wish I had one to experiment on.
I hold the actual blade (not the handle) with the back pushed into my palm n the teeth/blade facing out between my thumb/fingers.
I then concentrate o that tip, and sharpen it down till its got a good edge.
Once thats done I move onto the blade body and sharpen it up, touching up on the tip at the end if I have too.
The kestral just seeing pics donesnt look to difficult to get completly sharp, just try slowing your strokes down mabey and make sure you do the whole blade right to the tip on each side.
If your sharpening dont come right and you using the 40 deg angel,try the 30 just to see if it makes a diffenece, u can always put a 40 on that 30 once you got it if yu really wanna.
I don know how long you had your sharpmaker for, but it take a small amount of practise and you;ll find that you will probably develop your own techniques that work 100% for the knives you use.

Good luck <img src="smile.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>

MaNcEr

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