For those of you who are a little timid in tackling those edges which are reverse-profiled, this is to offer a little encouragement.
This last week I tackled a deep recurve kitchen knife my sister offered. The photos below are of a 2-3/4″ long knife and I had very little problem in producing a very sharp edge thereon. The edge was quite rough to start with, requiring me to start with 400-grit before progressing up to 1000-grit diamonds. And no, I did not use the convex stones, although I admit to a substantial amount of lechery in that direction.
The brand and model of the knife was completely erased by earlier work on the blade, so I can’t offer that tidbit. It looks to be one of the more upscale companies like Wuesthof or Henkel.
The answer lies simply in good technique. The stone is slid back and forth, with low-to-moderate pressure focused on the plastic edges of the handle, instead of on the normal handle gripping surfaces. This method results in the corners of the stones following the sweep of the blade almost exactly. You learn the arc of that motion and to maintain it whenever you stroke beyond the limits of the edge. I paid little attention to the vertical strokes, although there certainly was a substantial amount of that going on. Because vertical strokes with only two points of contact will leave deeper-than-normal tracks, I tried to avoid any vertical motion without an equal or greater simultaneous horizontal motion.
No, this will not produce the mirror facets you love so much on straighter edges. Even if it did, you wouldn’t see the same quality of reflection. Film abrasives (my preference) don’t like small contact areas. They make for torn film edges, so I stopped at the 1000-grit diamond blocks
So if you get a chance to try one of these, please do so. The experience will give you great confidence in dealing with those much less extreme cases. And it will hep develop your stoning technique.
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