A little fun with a chisel tipped knife.....

savagesicslayer · Jan 21, 2011

I have a small path behind my house that runs parallel to our pasture and it's getting overgrown.I was gifted a CRKT Razel SS7 for Christmas and wanted to stretch it's legs and see what this big mean looking knife could do.
Razel SS7 specs:
Overall length 12 and 1/4 inches.
Blade is 7 and 1/4 inches.
Steel is 9Cr18MoV (similar to 440C)
Micarta handle slabs.
This knife features 3 edges.The primary edge is plain with a slight belly.the front edge is thicker more chisel like and the back edge has CRKTs Veff serrations.
The task:

The path wasn't impassable but it was a pain when your trying to walk and things are whipping you in the face.My eventual plan is to make this an ATV trail for easier fence mending.So I set to work.the knife is short and light as far as chopping blades go but it felt strong in the hand and was crazy sharp(on all edges).The handle however is "just" big enough for my big paws (I wear a 10 1/2 ring) to grip it well.The micarta is also slick when wet so I put some of my trusty hockey tape on it for grip.
For the most part the job was cutting small thumb sized fur and some skinny hardwoods but there were some exceptions.A wrist sized fur was right where I didn't need it so it had to go.

The Razel went through it quite well.I wanted to see what the veff serrations could do so I tried to saw the tree with them.

After almost an hour I had the trail opened up to where I was satisfied.(there is much more I just took a pic of the beginning to show the change.)

How did the knife fare?The primary edge was slightly dulled but would still shave arm hair.

The back edge however wasn't so lucky.The Veff serrations took a pounding when I sawed at the tree with them.

Why they'd put such a weak serration system on a hard use knife is beyond me.I'll try to sharpen/file out the chips later.The rest of the knife is still 100% serviceable.
All in all I'm happy with the knife and it's bush clearing prowess.This is the second CRKT Razel knife I have (I also have the ringed Razel).I will sometime in the future be picking up the stubby razel to complete the collection.

DennisStrickland · Jan 21, 2011

your photos & text were great. interesting blade to do that job, i.m.o. there's no way that the serrations should fail on soft wood . i hope you are good with your tools because the serrations look like a nuke hit them. hey it's better for a tool to fail when you're in your backyard instead of the far side of a mountain. thank s for the heads up on a product that i wo'nt purchase.--dennis

cramsey3006 · Jan 21, 2011

Good to know that knife can handle come chopping. As for the serrations, well, I think all serrations SUCK. If it were mine, it would probably end up with a smooth spine.

shecky · Jan 21, 2011

The steel along the serrations might have compromised heat treatment, possibly a result of the grinding process. From the way they look and the description of how they failed, you might want to hope that is the case. The serration pattern doesn't look inherently weak. The valleys seem to have suffered as much or more damage than the peaks, indicating the fundamental lack of durability in the edge grinds. It's simply very odd that the serration edges would sustain such damage while sawing, yet still seem to mostly retain the peaks of the serrations, which one might assume to be the the weakest parts most prone to damage from such action.

FALZILLA · Jan 24, 2011

Nice review, thanks for sharing AND being honest

I have the smaller "ringed" Razel and an S30V ringed razel and love them both. I don't mind that the steel on the 7 is softer/cheaper etc. than the Graham models the only thing that's been holding me back buying one is the serrations. I always prefer plain edges but my problem isn't that there are serrations..... it's that they run the entire length of the spine. I really wish that CRKT would've made/offered this with a flat spine, or maybe just two inches of serrations above the handle.
Nice photos:thumbup:..... but I'm so glad I live in AZ, I die if I had to walk through that path (shivering looking at it).

Is that a glass breaker on the pommel? I never noticed that in any stock photos. I swear I need one of these in my truck.... just cuz.

EricV · Jan 26, 2011

Fairly common for Veff serrations for fail like that. They end up being ground too thin for just about any solid material on just about every knife I've handled with them. They do however hack up thick nylon rope very well, but even that has screwed them up a bit. Not very sturdy serrations compared to the spyderco or emerson styles that represent the more common type. No idea why they'd put them on a big beefy fixed blade like that.

Great review!

shecky · Jan 26, 2011

I still have doubts about culpability of the serrations themselves. I suspect heat treat instead.

Chris C. · May 2, 2014

shecky said:
The valleys seem to have suffered as much or more damage than the peaks, indicating the fundamental lack of durability in the edge grinds. It's simply very odd that the serration edges would sustain such damage while sawing, yet still seem to mostly retain the peaks of the serrations, which one might assume to be the the weakest parts most prone to damage from such action.

No, that's actually exactly how you would expect it to fail because you would assume that the peaks are the strongest parts of the serration. Locally, they are the thickest part of the edge and hence the most resistant to being abraded away, fracturing or deforming. They remain intact despite being the most prominent part and potentially suffering the highest loading.

If you look closely at SSS's excellent last picture you see that the serrations have failed exactly as one would expect given their asymmetric design. When the knife would be moving to the left as oriented in the picture the serrations would be acting as shallow ramps (say maximum around 20 degrees to the long axis of the blade) and riding over any material. However, when the blade moves to the right the ramps are much steeper (maximum around 60 degrees) and both exerting and experiencing more force. All other factors being equal that's easily approaching 150% more loading on the steeper side.

If you look the bottom picture that shows four serrations clearly the left most appears almost undamaged with perhaps a small chip slightly to the left (the steeper side) of the lowest section of the curve. All the others show extensive damage to the steeper slope, much or most of the shallow slope of each appears intact. Of the five prominences visible two appear to be intact and the other three have lost their very tips but the rapidly thickening spine of each has actually lead to little loss. (Bear in mind the photo is both rotated so that the long axis of the blade is not horizontal in the frame and also the camera axis was not perpendicular to the flat of the knife.)

While I agree with SSS that the knife is intended as a hard use knife using Veff serrations to saw a tree is abuse because it is a complete misuse. They are are not at all intended to be used to saw wood. They are too short a length to be intended as a wood saw. Also they are raked in the wrong direction and they are the wrong shape. I think the shortness is self-evident. The other two points are also quite obvious but just in case someone hasn't thought about them:

When saws have asymmetric teeth, which most do, the rake is on the front of the tooth which allows the blade to travel more freely when drawn backwards. The human arm can exert to far more force on the push stroke making for more efficient cutting which is why saws have been designed this way for thousands of years.

Veff serrations are oriented so that a human holding the knife by the handle can press the blade into a cord/flexible material and draw the blade backwards across it into the more biting part of the serration at the same time in the normal way that one cuts a cord. Especially when the user is holding cord looped around a blade the natural way to cut the cord is to pull the arms apart which also has the nice advantage that the tip of the blade is moving in the opposite direction than that needed to stab the holder or whatever the cord is attached to. (Though on this knife with a serrated back looping the cord may be less of an option.)

There is a reason the word saw-tooth exists to describe the shape of the tooth of a saw. Veff serrations don't look much like any saw I've ever seen. The gullet of Veff serrations is full of thin, fragile knife edge nearly parallel to the long axis of the knife and is in no way comparable to the fleam of a crosscut saw. Fleam on a saw alternate sides (even on flush cut saws) but Veff serrations to keep the blade straight are necessarily all on the same side.

As a final point on this there are far too few teeth to make it a saw. There are what, 8 points on that entire serrated area? Even a rip saw is 5 points per inch and so would have many more points than 8 over even that short length.