cbwx34 wrote:


Thank you very much for your response, I was a bit concerned that my question would not be interesting to anyone else since there are so few posts here regarding recurve knives. I really love my ZT350 recurve but it does present obvious problems for sharpening. I know this is a very popular knife, ZT says it is their biggest seller. I have noticed in other forums that recurve owners pretty much stay away from Wicked Edge because they don't think it will work with their recurves.

I hope Clay reads this and gets the hint to do a YouTube sharpening a ZT350 with the WEPS to attract some of those doubters.

I am excited and a big part of that is being able to share with others who have the same interests, so thanks for that encouragement.

Now, I have a question based on your observations with the flashlight. Is it just the edges of the stone that are sharpening the recurve and if so, won't that leave deeper microscopic scratches on the blade?

The reason I am asking is because I ordered the WE curved ceramic stones but they only come in 400 and 600 grits which seems limiting. Ideally I would be able to cancel the curved stones and use the full progression of the flat stones but it seems, logically that the recurve and flat stones would not be compatible.

It seems from what I am learning here is that the flat stones would actually work. I was not able to talk to Clay when I ordered the WE System and the person who answered to take the order was not familiar with recurves and suggested I add the curved ceramic stones.

If anyone with a 350 can answer this so I can determine whether or not I need the curved stones could respond, that would be great. The system is not going to ship until at least next week so I can still change it.

Thanks
Scott

Scott,
I recently sharpened a couple of knives with recurves. I did the CRKT Ken Onion Foresite and the Cold Steel Spartan. The CS Spartan has a more significant recurve. Though I have not handled the 350, looking at the pictures, the Spartan has more recurve than the ZT knife.I just went through my typical progression for working knives. I used 19 degrees per side. The diamonds from 100 to 1000. Then Choseras from 800 to 3000 (I usually stop here with the 1000 Chosera, but decided to make thes a bit finer and more reflective), then leather strops at 6, 3, 1 and 0.05 microns. I then set a micro bevel at 21 degrees with the Shapton 15K stone and restropped at 19 degrees with 0.125 and 0.1 Diamond on Kangaroo. I got nicely sharp and very reflective edges. I didn't have any problems with using the standard stones and strops.

With the finer stones (2000 and 3000) chosera stones initially there was some flaking of the edges, but I just lightened up the stroke a bit and all was ok.

I didn't notice any deeper scratches due to hittng the blade with the edges of the stone in the recurve area. I used up to 100X magnification. After all, the sbrasives on the edge of the stone are the same as those in the middle. A nice light touch, it seems, prevents any gouging.

The rounded stones will help getting more abrasive at the edge and maybe speed things up some, But, if you did not have them you should still be able to sharpen the 350 just fine. For setting the bevel, the stock diamonds (from my experience) should work just fine.

Phil

Thanks Phil,
Very much appreciated .

I will call WE Monday to change my order which is cool because now I can add another stone or two that I had a hard time justifying.

It would still be outstanding if others especially with my ZT 350 could share what works what didn't.

Great community forum this.


Thanks
Scott

wickededge wrote:


So the curved stones are around the 600 grit range? The ones I got (around the beginning of the year) look EXACTLY like my 1200/1600 grit ceramics that you used to sell... and they perform identically. I use my curved ceramics as an "in-between" to go from the 1k diamonds to my 5k/10k choseras, and they work great. By the time I am off of the fine curved ceramics, I am starting to get a nice polish (Could probably come close to a mirror finish if I were to go to just one strop - i.e. 3um or something).

PhilipPasteur wrote:


If you lap the "corners" or edges of the choseras they will not flake off/scrape off, and also they will not leave any chips in the edge of your knife once they are smoothed out (I learned this the hard way, lol). In fact, I can use the corners of my choseras now to do heavy re-curves just fine... it doesn't eat them away at all and works great.

+1 on the stock diamonds working on re-curves as well!

Phil, you should post some pics for us for motivation! lol

I will try to do that. Got a new camera and trying to figure out how to get postable ...decent pictures out of it. The full 18 megapixel photos are way too big... even cropping does not make them of decent size. I will see what I can do this evening.
BTW, I have chamfered the edges on all of the Choseras... maybe not enough. I had to on my 10K... I almost had a heart attack when I chipped one...