Advantages/disadvantages of chisel grind

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Many Emerson knives feature a "chisel" grind. This is common on pruning knives and disposable knives, but was largely shunned by the knife industry until Mr. Emerson's work "legitimized" it. Could someone from Emerson knives please explain the following:

What do you consider the advantages of the chisel grind? Are these advantages exclusive to this grind?

What do you consider the disadvantages of the chisel grind? Are these disadvantages exclusive to this grind?

Why do you feel these advantages outweigh these disadvantages for the role to which these knives are designed? Could you explain that role?

Do you feel that a chisel grind should be sharpened to twice the angle of a single grind to retain comparable edge strength? Why or why not?

Thank you.

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-Corduroy
(Why else would a bear want a pocket?)
 
B

BH

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One definate advantage to the chisel grind is that you only have half of the angle to sharpen. You can get a much sharper blade IMO. Also they are fairly easy to sharpen. Just my 2 cents.

Brian
 
The left-side grind is traditional on pruning/grafting knives for right-handed gardeners, though I doubt that this is what Mr. Emerson had in mind.

However, customers sometimes put their swords to plowshare duty.

From memory of an old old thread in the Benchmade Forum, there is an arthritic little old lady in the SF Bay area in California who appropriated her son's Benchmade 9700 as a gardening knife, much easier for her to use than gardening clippers. When, in the end of history, God sorts everybody out and we don't need weapons any more, and folks can nap in their orchards and their vinyards without posting a sentry, Emerson Knives will still have a market niche!
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
 
Good question. I also was wondering what the advantage of this grind is. I can see an advantage in the making of the knife and as was pointed out it is quicker to sharpen. However, it is difficult to make straight cuts with them. Even opening an envelope is difficult. The cutting forces are not balanced so the blade tends to skew in the cut.

I suppose if you want a cut to skew in the material then maybe. Someone educate me on this.
 
I've made chisel-ground blades and they are quite a bit easier to do (though mine were ground on the right side, as I feel befits a right-handed user). You don't have to worry about getting clean, symmetrical shoulders, matching the work of your strong- and off-hand, or keeping the grinds parallel. I don't make blades this way anymore and never sold any because I did not feel they were a functional improvement over a standard double-grind. Clearly Emerson knives feels differently and I'm curious to hear why.

Add one more question to my list:
Which side should a chisel-grind be on and why?

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-Corduroy
(Why else would a bear want a pocket?)
 
As an owner of several chisel ground blades (for one reason or another) I'd be interested in hearing the replies myself.

I copied the following off the official Emerson Knives website (I trust they would have no problem with that info being reproduced here from their own FAQ):

____________________________________________

"Why do you use the chisel grind?

There are several reasons for the chisel grind. For any of you who have ever used a correctly sharpened wood chisel for woodworking, you know what a chisel can do. Although a knife is not a chisel, those properties, when applied to a knife grind have almost magical effect. A chisel ground knife, being beveled, (ground) on one side only, possesses greater strength, (due to increased cross sectional mass) and they cut with an ease not found on any other type of blade. This is because there is no parasitic drag produced by the flat side when cutting --- no drag points. On top of that, they are much easier to sharpen --- you only have to sharpen one side.

Why do you put the chisel on the front or left side of the blade?

This is an Emerson signature. Being the knifemaker who brought the chisel grind to worldwide recognition, we are often asked; Why do you put the grind on the opposite side of a traditional Japanese Chef’s knife? The answer is simple....We are not making chef’s knives. Our knives are hard knives meant for hard users. We do not cut many tomatoes. Our tests and those of a major government agency determined that there was no difference between right and left side grinds for use as a tool or weapon. The left side was chosen for purposes of visual cue and reference. "

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Blues

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Live Free or Die

 
All of my knives are chisel ground except a few Microtechs and Mad Dogs. The majority of my knives are Emerson and I like them because they can be made wickedly sharp. It is possible to put a razor sharp edge on a double grind and flat grinds can be great too. Nonetheless, in my experience, some of the sharpest knives I've handled have been chisel ground (Emerson, Hartsfield, JS Piorek).

I mainly carry my Emersons for defensivee purposes and when I need a utility knife I use something else.

For the chisel ground on the "wrong side" it doesn't matter to me. I don't intend to use these knives to open letters. I use other knives for that purpose.

Jason
 
I posted this to learn, not to express my own opinions, but I do feel some clarification on function is needed.

Pruning knives are chisel-ground on the left side because a right-handed user can place the flat of the blade against a plant stem and shear an errant bud flush while that bud is facing them. A right-hand grind would be less helpful because then the bud would be on the opposite side of the stalk and it would be difficult to see to make a precise cut.

Chef's knives are chisel-ground on the right side because a right-handed user holds an item to be cut with the left and the grind "peels" the pieces away from the blade.

Now, clearly the pruning issue is not one faced by users of combat knives, but what about the other? Can you imagine that a "serious user" might wish to hold something steady with his or her left hand and cut pieces away with the right? Just imagine sharpening a tent-stake and you will see what I mean.

If the choice of grind-side didn't matter, I would understand Mr. Emerson's choice to decide it based solely on aesthetics. But I feel that it is most certainly is a functional concern to the users of more than just kitchen knives.

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-Corduroy
(Why else would a bear want a pocket?)
 
"When you put a chisel grind on a knife, it has a magical effect"(paraphrase)

Bwahahahahaha!

Yup. It turns your knife, into a chisel!

These do have their place. I once owned a chisel ground knife. It was a patch knife for a blackpowder pistol/knife combo I made. It was designed to cut the the patch off level at the muzzel. Sorry I can't say that clearer, if you are familiar with muzzel loading, you know what I mean. I found no advantage, certainly no "magic", in the design for any other uses. It's very niche, usualy only really needed when you need to make a flush sheering cut(or work wood!) when what you're cutting is butted up against something(like the patch), and in every other situation it is inferior to a double grind. While there are a few tasks it does no worse in, that is offset by all the things a double grind does better.

I'm sorry for ruining your thread Corduroy and everybody, but that "magic" thing is just over the top. I mean, it makes Man'O'War look level-headed(Stand up and fight! Booooorn with a heaaart of steeeeeeeel! cheesey metal band if you're wondering, at least they were metalic, unlike that 80's crap).

This just smells like another way to make a niche for yourself in the cutlery(cult-ery?) industry. I'm down with that, but don't try to pass them off as something they're not(magical).

(disclaimer: We here at Ironmonger Industries, Inc. formaly apologize for the immature post and obnoxious behavior of our c.e.o., Snickersnee. On behalf of both our executive officer and ourselves we wish you many more years of strong sales.)
 
Well, I have to agree with Snick (to a degree). I've owned and handled plenty of chisel-ground blades through the years, and I haven't been able to get any of them cut straight. Sure, they were sharp, but when I practiced cutting drills on my sparring tree, the edges sheared and deflected rather than cutting exactly straight.

Of course, I don't think an opponent in a fight would stop and complain about the flaw of my cut, but I do like to know exactly what my edge is going to do (then again, it may be due to a lack of practice on my part for these knives). They did re-sharpen very easily, however, and took a great edge.

Zog

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"A fear of weaponry is a sure sign of neuroses."
-Freud
 
THE REASON THAT CHISEL GRINDS AREN'T A BIG DEAL
(a more-mature post by Snickersnee)

Examine the edge of a chisel ground blade some time. Note that one angle intersects with another. Now, in your mind's eye, slice off that edge and compare it to that of a double ground edge. You will see it is the same.

Now then, what's the difference between a chisel ground and double ground blade? Chisel ground blade tend to have fat cross-sections because not much metal gets removed in their manufacture. If you continue a chisel grind all the way to the spine, you essentialy get a flat grind with the tang at an odd angle to the blade. Anyway, if you keep to a more conventional chisel grind, you end up with an abrupt transition from your tapered edge to your fat cross-section. That makes for good splitting, and great planing and and chipping of wood, which is why they put chisel grinds on chisels, but if you're talking about cutting through a material that has any sort of resistance to it, you're gonna have to push harder to push the fat balde through the material. Sure, the edge is sharp, but once you get that blade sunk into something deep, that fatness get's in your way. Sure you can make it work, but it's not the most efficient grind. If brute strength is all you're intrested in, I humbly suggest that a tool other than a knife is what you're after.

Of course, if you want a chisel ground knife for some reason, I don't care. Like I said, just don't call it something it's not.
 
Brian :

One definate advantage to the chisel grind is that you only have half of the angle to sharpen
Click to expand...

No. If you have a traditional v-ground knife you can do the same thing. Just grind on one side until you get a burr and then grind it off just like you would with a chisel grind. If you want to keep the edge centered then swap sides from time to time when you sharpen your knives.

Corduroy :

Which side should a chisel-grind be on and why?
Click to expand...

Which ever hand you favor. It sets the minimal angle of presentation to zero which minimizes the chance of slips during chopping. Of course this is only relevant if you are chopping towards this direction but with the exception of trying to cut right through something, most of the chopping type work will be like this (sharpening something for example).

If you are trying to cut/chop through something then it makes no difference as its a 50/50 effort from the right and the left obviously during chopping, and I can't see it making any difference using a sawing type stroke say on rope either. Although it will obviously make it pull one way or the other, but I can't think as to why I would prefer left/right drift over each other.

Just about any geometries has a use. Speaking of chisel grinds, MD's chisel serrations pattern is lousy on rope, cardboard , fabrics and in general most utility work yet I was thinking of getting a fully serrated larger model to accompany my partially serrated TUSK because I liked the way the chisel type serrations would bite in very easily on wood at low angles of presentation. Of course the increased surface area of the serrations lowered penetration, but from a survival viewpoint the easy of bite with the vastly reduced chance of a slip greatly outweighted the lower penetration.

-Cliff
 
I know that I will not make many friends with this one. But the chisel grind is primarly a marketing tool. It looks macho. Also Emerson put the chisel on the left to be unique and to draw attention to it visually for the user. (ie it looks nicer).
For utility work the grind is inferior as it will not hold a straight line when cutting and it curves when slashing too. Also I feel that the grind is too steep on Emersons making them much better for penetration but that is very limited utility on a folder which has a blade that is too short too be effective. I recommend a v grind to my knife friends that cant afford alot of knives. But as always its a personal preferenc.
 
Actually if memory serves me right,please correct me if i am wrong.Emerson asked Phil Hartsfield permission to use that type of chisel gring because Phil has been putting that kind of chisel on his swords and knives for over 30 years.I think that says alot in it's self and all i have ever heard of Phil's stuff is praise.I have a CQC6 and Lightfoot 460 Mag with a right hand chisel.i like both alot but the Emerson looks and feels better IMHO.
 
Yes I believe that you are correct about the Phil Hartsfield thing. But I have talked with several people who own or have owned Phils work and have stated that they feel it is only average in quality in particular the knife sheath interface is often somewhat sloppy by report. I do not own any of his so I cannot say. It seems to have a cult following and if you wait two years and pay $800 dollars you often have a vested interest in being impressed. I think that you pay an awfull lot just to get the name. That is fine if you are a collector but if you are a user it better be great for that kind of money. Remember that having a different look sells things as much as having a superior product.
 
Here goes my two cents: I have started a thread on chisel ground blades some months ago and, like this one, it went very far with lots of different opinions wich never get even close to consense. At the time i was learnong how to make chisel ground blades and now I am much more proficient at making them (wich I consider fairly easy now) as well as much more experienced with their use: here is my opinion: except for some very specific tasks, such as food preparationa and garden activities, the chisel is quite clumsy. It, though, still can be put very successfully in a fighting knife, where you don´t need so precise cuts, besides it´s inherent strenght (due to the large amount of steel left on the blade) and ability to puncture large holes, different from what you get on a double flat or hollows (this will also depend on the blade geometry, of course). I like a high tech chisel ground blade with stainless steel and something like G-10 on the handle as much as I like a good old wood handled convex ground fighter, and there will surely alwais be a market for both, and everything in between.
Best regards.


Ivan Campos
 
Ivan,

I respectfully suggest that the "inherent strength" and "large holes" associated with the chisel grind have nothing to do with the grind, but are merely a product of the sharpened prybars on which these grinds typically appear.

If I make a knife and grind a 45-degree chisel on one side, it will be very strong and make a very large hole because it will have a huge cross-section. If I make an identical knife and grind 22.5-degree angles on both sides, the results will be identical.

On the flip-side, I could very easily fully grind one side of a blade to make a long, steep "chisel" and get excellent cutting performance, lower strength, and easier penetration with slimmer holes - just like a knife that was fully flat-ground on both sides.

There is no inherent correlation between chisel grinds and very shallow grinds, and what you are discussing are the attributes of a shallow grind. A chisel grind does the same thing any other grind does - it produces a wedge-shaped cross-section that defines a "blade." The only difference is that the chisel makes a "tilted" wedge whereas the double-grind produces one that is centered.

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-Drew Gleason
Little Bear Knives
 
That was part of my explanation, but I tried not to go into much detail as I tend to get lost in my English. Anyway, as for today´s custom and production chisel ground "tactical " knives, the chisel is heavily associated with a shallow grind. Inherent strenght and large holes are just what you want in a knife solely made for fighting - even much strenght is not so necessary in a knife that will not see any other use but fighting as is the hability to make big holes in your enemy´s body. Of course, any knife design is a compromise in wich you sacrifice some characteristics for others, and this is a very specialized type of grind, not much useful for anything else, as I said in my first post. I could add that as you get familiar with the knife you carry, it will be easier to do anything with it. I could do most anything with a push dagger I used to carry yeras ago, and that, too, was a very specialized design that was not designed to "do most anything", it was designed only for fighting.
Please don´t take me as a great chisel fan. It is just that I think there are some aplications it is good for. For a more versatile knife, a full flat ground blade with a convex edge will do for me. I am NOT claiming that the chisel ground blade is "unbelievable, unbeatable, magical, etc, etc, at all!

Ivan Campos

P.S.: but we can still go much far discussing the chisel grind and that will be very interesting, but I think we should see it in a broader way, discussing the characteristics associated with each maker, prices, the maker´s claims, etc, and I don´t believe this is the place for such discussion.
 
The discussion about the grind angle is well taken. My elishewitz and deViliers chisel grinds are at a shallower angle and as a result have much better performance. But to say that a fighting knife should make broad holes I feel is wrong. For example I do not know of a sword that is chisel ground except by the likes of Hartsfield. If you want penetration you want thin and sharp if you want to slice you want symmetric or the blade will not follow the path you desire unless you are extremely strong. In a combat blade a Applegate-Fairbairn or a classic (not americanized) tanto a probably the best. Both have been thru much more rigorous testing than any of us could every do. Oh yes I do own several chisel grinds and have fun with them. To be honest my deViliers Operator would be the last folding fighter I would get rid of, it's that good. Too bad so few know about him.
 
You left out drop points, clip points, and spear points as thoroughly tested, combat proven, and effective blade styles for combat/fighting knives.
 
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