BobNash wrote:


Hi Bob, this sounds like an interesting technique for recurves. However, I find it a bit hard to visualize. Perhaps it's because English is not my first language - how do you use the Choseras to work the corners of the stones? I have the round stones which work great for recurves, but are 400/600 only. If I use flat stones, there are indeed parts of the stones that are not in contact with the metal, whereas their corners attack the metal agressively. Would be great if you could elaborate on it a bit. Thanks!

[quote="mark76" post=3310]BobNash wrote:


Hi Mark,
My Choseras and Shaptons are all still packed from my last show, but I'll try to explain and be a little more precise for you (I get a little lazy sometimes in my language which I imagine doesn't always make it easy to follow ). I'll also open up one of my new chosera sets that are ready to ship and try to get a photo for you tomorrow or Tuesday if this doesn't help you visualize it - just let me know.
What I do is rotate the stone on the rod so that the corner is what is contacting the knife - so it is similar to working with a triangular ceramic. I rotate out on my fingers and in with my thumbs as this is most comfortable for me. I haven't tried it the other way to see if it makes any difference though I don't imagine it does.
The choseras will of course round off much faster than the ceramic would - but I found this to only help in their performance when I did the Kris blades. I don't know that I would want to do this all the time as it is a bit awkward holding the stone twisted, but for the Kris it worked great.
Best,
Bob

Here is a link to another forum thread where razoredgeknives has some pics of a kris dagger he did on the WE.

Ok trying this link again

link here

Thanks, Bob. I think I get the point now. Am I correct in thinking you only used the corner of the stone(s) to sharpen the recurves (at least the most acute parts)? That must have been a hell of a job, taking a long time. Or do the Choseras round off so quickly that you have a larger surface area to work with early in the process?

mark76 wrote:


Hi Mark -
Like Josh (RazorEdgeKnives) in the other the other thread I actually did both - used the stone flat so it was riding on both corners - not fully in contact, and turned the stone so it was riding on only one corner. Since then I have found that in most cases I have found you can do quite a bit of inside curve even with the stone flat and get great results - and the work does go faster this way. I did not lap the corners of my stones like Josh did - that is a great idea as it rounds them much faster.
I found on the Kris blades I worked on that using only one corner did allow me to track the knife shape a little more easily, even though it meant that I was using a lot less stone surface to work with. Both of the blades I sharpened did take a while to do, though I'm unsure of how long it would take me to do those same blades again from scratch as there as a lot of experimenting along the way that took up lots of time (and they weren't mine so I was trying to be very careful). Repositioning the knife slows the process as well - and they are difficult to clamp in my experience due to the blade geometry. In the end, the only step I ended up doing along the full blade length was stropping, everything else was in shorter sections blended together. I can only find one photo right now - didn't realize at the time they were going to come in handy so didn't take many. This one was also taken with my phone so not the best quaility .
Bob

At this point I was trying the curved ceramics and as I recall I had only worked with diamonds. The luks in this knife are fairly gentle so I was able to work it in two sections. I tried out choseras after this to even up the bevel. This was super soft metal, wouldn't hold an edge and scratched really easily. I'm sure Clay remembers this knife which plagued me for days it seemed!